Live Free or Die
by Lyoko Native
Summary: Unknown to the world, magical creatures live amongst humans, hiding in the shadows of the forests and watching your every move. Hermitage stakes a claim on one such creature.
1. Chapter 1

**Live Free or Die**

_Chapter One: Break In at Hermitage_

Leaves hung by gentle stems from the branches of the trees, the bark a dark brown and the leaves colored fiery orange and pale yellow. It would have been beautiful had the sun been shining, not covered by the sickly grey clouds that ruining the sense of harmony given off by the early autumn scenery. But the clouds—sickly as they were—provided an adequate amount of shadows, perfect for sneaking around in and disguising inhuman appearances. For the magical creatures that lurked and lived in those woods, the dreary skies were a blessing. Humans did not take kindly to their existence. Lyna and Gus, an elf and a wizard, were no different than any other creature in the forest, though they did not call it home.

Lyna and Gus were on an important mission. They were looking for an antidote, a cure of sorts, and if they failed, well, the pair did not like to think of the consequence. Especially Lyna.

Lyna had light brown skin with caramel-colored eyes and hair. Her hair was messy, cowlicks extending in all directions, and it seemed as if it hadn't been combed in ages. It only reached to her shoulders, if even that; and it covered her left ear. Lyna wore a white dress with the left side boxed off and colored a powder blue. Inside the blue box, there were three red rectangular buttons. The dress had long striped sleeves, the stripes alternating between red and blue, and near the hem of the dress, there were two stars—the left star was red, and the right star blue. Lyna wore striped stockings that had a rotating pattern of blue and white stripes. Her shoes were red, fringed, and reached just above her ankles.

Gus had dark skin that resembled dark chocolate and black hair with eyes so dark; they were almost the same color as his pupils. His black hair was tied back into dreadlocks. Gus wore a white shirt with long sleeves and loose dark jeans. He had on clunky white sneakers. Over his outfit, Gus wore a wizard's cloak, white on the outside, blue on the inside, and the hood hung down across his shoulders. Tucked into the cloak's sleeve there was a wand of which he used to cast spells. He looked to Lyna briefly, and his eyes then returned to the forest path in front of them.

Lyna suddenly rushed forward, and Gus worried for a moment that their cover would be blown. He calmed himself, remembering that Lyna could run on the crunchy autumn leaves and never make a sound. He, however, was not so lucky. He watched her as she snuck around in the shadows, observing the house they were about to rob to find the antidote.

It was a tall house, but otherwise small, and there were only two floors to it, at best. There was a metal gate and a sign marked 'Hermitage,' and a long pathway leading up to the steps, the steps leading to the front door. Lyna inspected the gate, and she found that it had been unlocked. She turned as she heard Gus running from behind her. Lyna began to open the gate, but Gus gripped her hand with his, and he looked around. The entire property seemed to be observed by security cameras. Lyna saw them, too, and Gus reached inside his cloak to pull out his wand. He muttered something incomprehensible, and he waved the wand. The cameras short circuited, and Lyna opened the gate.

The front door was unlocked, and though they both thought the front door was a boring way to enter, entering through the back might tip off passer-bys that the two were not at Hermitage to see an old friend. Inside seemed normal enough—stairs stood at the center of the hallway and led to the second floor, an eat-in kitchen to the right of the doorway and a sitting room to the left.

For what Gus had managed to pry from a map of Hermitage, there was an office somewhere on the second floor that held vials of medicine, and the pair was going to begin searching there. The problem was, the map was very poor quality and the exact whereabouts of the office had been lost. Gus withdrew his wand again and climbed the stairs cautiously, and Lyna tore up the stairs next to him. She twisted the doorknob of the room at the top of the stairs. It was locked. "Hey, Gus, is this it? The door's locked." Lyna asked in a whisper, and Gus rolled his eyes and held his wand to the door.

"No. There are magical artifacts in there, but nothing even close to what should be expected of the antidote." Gus whispered his response, and he walked to another door. He muttered 'closet' and tried another, repeating the word 'closet' followed by a quiet mess of words that sound of curses and annoyance. Lyna tried the door to her left, and when it opened, she saw a woman—in her mid-thirties, long pink hair, blue turtleneck, cream-colored pants and blue socks—reading a book while lounging on her bed. Lyna shut the door again, hopeful that the woman had not seen her. Lyna opened the door just behind her, which was a den area.

"These people aren't very active, are they?" Lyna asked herself, and she looked around for another door. There wasn't one. Gus, too, had reached the end of his hallway and had nothing. "Did you find anything?" Lyna asked, already knowing the answer.

"No," Gus sighed, feeling bad for Lyna. He suddenly looked up, and he held his wand to the dead-end hallway wall. "But I think I found it now." He smiled, and he pushed on the wall. The wall turned, revealing the office they'd been looking for. Lyna smiled like a crazy person and, most likely not realizing what exactly she was doing, stood on her toes to kiss Gus' cheek. Gus' face burned with embarrassment, but his dark skin stopped it from showing. Gus and Lyna opened one of the three bookcases packed full of vials, and they both took one and searched for a label of some sort.

"This guy must have some kind of organizational skill if he can remember each of these vials' contents without a label." Lyna huffed, putting her weight on one leg and her free hand on her hip. "Do you have it?"

"No. I can't tell which of these vials has the antidote we need! All their magical signatures feel the same!" Gus protested. "Who do I look like—Severus Snape?"

"No! I was just saying—" Lyna stated defensively.

"Besides, that guy is too white to be me!" Gus protested, smacking his fist down onto his palm.

"And too evil, huh?" Lyna added, thinking.

"Not to mention too quiet," A third voice interjected. Lyna and Gus tore their eyes from each other to the source of the voice—the woman Lyna had seen earlier. "I'm sorry to interrupt your conversation, but it sounds to me that you're looking for something. Perhaps I can be of assistance."

Lyna placed the vial she was holding back into the bookshelf nervously, and Gus did the same. They wanted to run, but where to? The woman lived in Hermitage, no doubt. "I—uh, maybe. Well, um, no, well, yes, no, maybe…" Lyna babbled, looking to Gus for help. "We're looking for an antidote? For my brother?"

The woman made a sound, signaling she knew what Lyna was talking about. "An antidote, you say? My, that sounds important. So important you'd have to steal it?"

Lyna nudged Gus, and Gus muttered, "Um, it's just that we need it fast, because without it, her brother will die, and that'll be bad and…" He was silent for a moment, and the woman raised an eyebrow. She leaned against the side of the doorway. "…and we didn't think that you would just give it to us."

"Interesting. What ails your brother, elf child?" The woman spoke like royalty, as if she knew that the way she spoke made Lyna uncomfortable and very, very small.

"Poison." Lyna managed.

"That answers nothing, elf child." The woman demanded, standing straight and crossing her arms. "What poison is killing your brother?"

"The poison of a gancanagh."

"Gancanagh? And a man? How very peculiar. It's not something I've heard often." The woman's voice, though still regal in tone, trailed off. "How long had your brother known the man, elf child?"

"It wasn't a man, ma'am," Lyna muttered, speaking more like a hob than a free elf like she was. "Quite the opposite, actually. And he hadn't known the girl for very long, either, but she comes from a powerful family and there isn't much that can be done in the judicial system."

The woman seemed flustered, almost embarrassed, and apologized. "I'm sorry… a female gancanagh? Who knew such things existed…"

"No one, really. Especially not my brother." Lyna was relaxed again, and Gus noticed her voice had become more relaxed when the woman failed to address her as 'elf child.' He disregarded the connection.

"Did you know? I mean, after they began?"

"No, not really. I didn't think that she was poisoning him, just that she'd hurt him. Mentally and physically. He'd developed purplish burns on his arms, chest, neck and back. They hurt him if you touched them. He never really acted like the boy I used to know, either, he was usually tired when she left and after about fifteen minutes, he'd become more stressed out than ever." Lyna paused. Gus placed a hand on her shoulder. Lyna had been with him the longest. He knew the memories pained her as much—if not more—as they did her brother. Lyna hated to think about it, but she could never stop thinking about it. "When she turned on him, as they always do, he'd begged her not to go. He was on his knees, trying to stop her from leaving. And she left anyway. She didn't even give a shit." Lyna hung her head and clenched her fists, clearly upset she had done nothing. Clearly upset that she couldn't have done something even if she had wanted to. She began to cry, but she muffled her own sobs.

Gus looked to the woman, saying nothing—as he often did. He was usually a silent boy, but never outspoken—but begging her with his eyes. Though they were very dark, Gus' eyes could beg pretty well. The woman closed the door on the bookshelf, hugged Lyna softly, and produced a vial from her sock. "The gancanagh antidote is never easy to find. It's even less likely to run into one, but those that do usually die because they either can't find the antidote or the one they've found who has it refuses to give it to them. Well, if they don't find death before learning there is an antidote to begin with." The woman shrugged. "But anyway, because it's difficult to find, I always keep it with me. No one ever bothers to check your socks." The woman smiled.

"But I can't leave. Well, I can, but there's something here I can't leave alone. Too risky." The woman continued. "Bring your brother back here, elf child, and I'll administer the antidote to him then. How far is he into the poisoning, anyway?"

"Time wise? A few months. Stage wise? He's asleep. And having a nightmare." Gus shrugged. "A nightmare in which he killed something. What he killed? We aren't exactly sure."

The woman nodded. "I see. Well, it may not work if he's that far into it, but it's worth a shot. Downstairs, there's a door that you probably didn't see before. It leads to a spare bedroom, and you can just bring Jeremy in there when you arrive."

The pair nodded, and as they left the office, Lyna realized something and spun around. "How did you know my brother's name was Jeremy?"

"My dear elf child, I know much, much more already than you realize. Now, go fetch your brother."

"I'd have to agree with you, Lyna—that is some pretty freaky shit." Ulrich stated, lifting his legs off the floor of Gus' van to the dashboard. Ulrich had short brown hair, lighter brown eyes and pale skin. He wore a pale tee-shirt under a darker one of the same family, and he wore green baggy jeans with white sneakers. Gus smacked his legs and Ulrich returned his feet to the floor. Ulrich was a cross of something undead and a golem.

"Ulrich, watch your language!" Yumi warned, leaning forward to glare at Ulrich. Yumi had short black hair and dark brown eyes. She wore a black turtleneck and black jeans tucked into combat boots. Yumi had a fan tucked into her pocket and a book in her lap. She was a demigoddess, Yumi was—the half-human daughter of Amaterasu. "And you can stop encouraging him!" Yumi protested to Lyna, who had used the term 'some pretty freaky shit' in her description of what had happened. Yumi had been the one of whom had found Ulrich's corpse, which had been preserved somehow. He wasn't ancient, but he was old, but he only appeared to be thirteen. Yumi had used a spell in her book to bring Ulrich back to life, and she'd used clay to fix the areas of his skin of which were cracked. She found something on his person that identified him as 'Ulrich Stern.'

"I'm sorry, but that was the only term fitting the event." Lyna shrugged. Lyna had been with Yumi when they revived Ulrich; and Lyna—since Yumi would never admit it was true—remembered Yumi's spell hadn't worked the first time. Lyna wrote 'emeth,' the Hebrew word for 'truth' on Ulrich's forehead faintly, saying that the word was used on golems to bring them to life. Yumi had repeated the spell and then the spell worked. The word 'emeth' was still faint on Ulrich's forehead. Lyna leaned back and looked at Jeremy, who was still asleep, and she sat back down. "Poor dude. I think the nightmare is getting worse."

"Well, it's a good thing Anthea is giving us the antidote, then." Ulrich agreed, and he added, "I've read that when the nightmare gets worse, it means the person is one step closer to death than before." Gus, keeping his eyes on the road, opened his mouth to say something, but Ulrich interrupted. "And then, once the person is dead, they wake up in Hell."

"What the hell are you saying?" Lyna yelled, shocking Ulrich a bit out of his clay-coated skin. "Are you saying my brother is going to Hell?"

"No, Lyna, it's just that—" Ulrich pleaded.

"_My brother is not going to Hell!_" Lyna yelled, her eyes tearing up. She leaned back and onto Yumi, who comforted her silently. "My brother is not going to Hell." Lyna repeated, as if saying it over and over would make it true. In fact, Lyna wasn't sure herself. "_Laurelei_ is going to Hell. Not my brother."

Yumi shushed her. Gus continued, saying what he'd wanted to say earlier. "How'd you learn the woman's name, Ulrich?"

"I looked it up. The owner of Hermitage's name is Waldo Schaffer, and his wife is Anthea. She looks just like the woman you described." Ulrich explained. He turned to look at Lyna. "I didn't mean to upset you. I was only saying—"

"_Shut up!_" Both Lyna and Yumi said at the same time. Lyna curled her legs up onto the seat. Yumi looked at Ulrich and muttered the word, 'honestly' in a questioning tone. Ulrich shrugged.

He turned back to face forward, and he looked to Gus, who shrugged in return. "Jesus Christ, you really can't please them, can you?"

"It's a woman's world, little dude, and we just live in it." Gus stated in a matter-o-factly tone. Yumi, in the background, nodded and said, "That's right." Gus pulled up to the gate at Hermitage.

"Hey, Gus, how come you're driving?" Lyna asked, wiping a tear from her eye and opening her door. "You're only fourteen."

"Because if all else goes wrong, I'm the one who can make the van sprout wings, and that has to be done from the drivers' seat." Gus stated in the same matter-o-factly tone as before, and Ulrich nodded. The others opened their doors and Lyna dragged Jeremy out from where they'd laid him, draping one drooping arm around her shoulder as the other hung by his side. Lyna wrapped her arm around his waist, and like this, she dragged him. She wouldn't let anyone else hold him, not even Yumi, whom she had known for a long time. Lyna was often the goofball of the five, but she could be very possessive of her brother.

Ulrich opened the gate, smiling apologetically at Lyna as she passed, and she smiled back. "It's not worth the effort to go through life angry all the time." Lyna said; adjusting the way Jeremy leaned on her for comfort. Once they had all passed, Ulrich closed the gate behind him and followed.

Instead of just barging in as they had before, Yumi knocked politely on the door. She clutched her book close to her, and the door opened. The woman—Anthea, if Ulrich was correct—looked from Yumi to Ulrich to Gus to Lyna and finally, to Jeremy. She smiled at all five, and she allowed them to enter. The spare bedroom's door was open, and the group entered it. Lyna struggled to put Jeremy on the bed, and seeing this, Ulrich helped her without thinking. The two fourteen-year-olds in the background motioned for Ulrich to stop, and they looked to Lyna to see what she'd do, but Lyna simply smiled and made room for Anthea.

Anthea, in turn, removed the cork top from the vial of antidote and placed the vial in Ulrich's hands. "Will you hold this for me, golem child?" Anthea asked, and Ulrich was both shocked that she could recognize he was a golem and deeply honored she had asked him to do something. Anthea removed Jeremy's turtleneck, and Lyna gripped her elbows to keep herself from smacking Anthea. Anthea reached out to rub a poison burn over Jeremy's heart, but she stopped and muttered something. She took the vial from Ulrich and said, "Thank you," before pouring the entire content of the vial onto the poison burn. Jeremy, in his sleep, screamed in pain. He arched his back, a common expression of pain.

Human screams are bad enough to release, let alone listen to, but Jeremy was not human. He was elfin, like Lyna, and his scream of pain was much worse than that of a human. Lyna almost cried listening to it. She cursed herself, ashamed that she was so easily upset. Jeremy's screams only lasted a few seconds, and the arch in his back relaxed. But he didn't wake up. There was silence for a few moments. "Is he…" Yumi began, "…y'know… dead?"

Lyna placed her ear just left to the burn over Jeremy's heart. When she'd first seen it, Lyna remembered remarking that Jeremy had heartburn. "No, his heart's still beating, and I can hear him breathe. He's alive," Lyna almost cried at the last two words of her sentence. She straightened suddenly, and asked, "What the heck's goin' on with his forehead?"

Written in glowing letters on Jeremy's forehead was 'LAURELE.' As they stared at it, another letter began to form, and as it did, everyone but Anthea realized the leaders were trying to spell 'Laurelei.' The new and last letter stopped forming suddenly, and it ended up spelling 'LAURELET' instead of 'LAURELEI.' The word simply stopped glowing, and it wasn't visible after that. Instead, new letters spelled something different. Anthea flushed, seeing almost immediately what the new word was. In a girly and child-like handwriting, it spelled something unclear to the rest of the people in the room. The letters shifted in handwriting, and Lyna was able to make out the word.

"A-E-L-I-T-A." Lyna recited, following along with her finger. "Aelita."

"Is 'Aelita' some kind of Hebrew word? Is Jeremy a golem now?" Ulrich asked, leaning over Lyna's shoulder.

"No, 'Aelita' is not some kind of Hebrew word!" Lyna remarked sharply. "In truth, I don't know what an 'Aelita' is. Do you know?" She asked, looking at Anthea.

Anthea was silent, and she didn't seem to be paying attention to Lyna at first. "What? Oh." She blushed, and added, "Aelita… well, it's none of your concern. But now Jeremy can't leave the grounds of Hermitage…"

"Why?" Gus asked before Lyna could begin cursing.

"It's just…" Anthea's voice trailed off. "…the word 'Aelita' symbolizes that Hermitage has decided that Jeremy couldn't just have the antidote, and he's got to stay here until it decides Jeremy's paid off his debt."

"You refer to Hermitage as if it's alive." Yumi pointed out.

Anthea remained silent. "In a way, I suppose it is." She managed. "Needless to say, the elf boy remains here. You can visit him if you want, but my husband will notice if you all stay here. I can explain Jeremy, but he won't stand for all of you here…"

When Lyna seemed hurt, Ulrich rested his hand on her shoulder. Out of his pocket, Ulrich revealed Jeremy's cell phone, and the thirteen-year-old golem placed it in the elf boy's pocket. Lyna pulled a piece of paper from a notepad and scribbled a message on it. She placed the message on the table and weighed it down with Jeremy's glasses. She turned to leave, and then scribbled another message on the backside. "Thanks for everything, Anthea." Lyna smiled.

"How did you know my name was Anthea?" The pink-haired green-eyed woman asked. "I hadn't introduced myself."

"My dear human, I already know more than you realize. I thank you again." Lyna stated in a half-mocking half-sincere voice. She turned and ran after the others.

Though Anthea knew it couldn't be so that Lyna knew more than she realized, the woman panicked. Could the elf and the wizard have been in Hermitage longer than she had realized? Could she have left the door unlocked? What did she do that could have made it so that Lyna _could _know more than she let on?

Anthea rummaged through her pocket and revealed a small silver key with a pink hair at the top. She closed the door to the spare bedroom and rushed up the stairs, fumbling with the key a bit as she inserted it into the lock of the door at the top of the stairs. Anthea opened the door hastily, and she looked inside, scared.

The inside was a pink bedroom, a bed covered in pink sheets, a television resting on a pink chest of drawers, pink paint, pink bookshelves, pink doors… everything was pink but the curtains, which were a drab grey color in contrast. Anthea walked into the bedroom and shut the door behind her, and the door closing grabbed the attention of the only living thing inside the room besides Anthea.

"Hi, Mommy!" Anthea's daughter, Aelita, greeted.


	2. Chapter 2

_Chapter Two: Jeremy's Nightmare_

It was dark. That was the first thing he noticed, and that was it was dark. The second thing he noticed was that it was cold—_death _cold. The third thing was the music—he could hear '_Entrance of the Gladiators_*' playing faintly and eerily in the background. Everything else came in a flush. The cage, the moon, the lake, the rock, the forest… but Jeremy didn't seem to care for any of these things after he realized he was alone. He curled up at the back of the cage he sat in, trying to get warm. He was inadequately dressed for such a place. His turtleneck had been replaced by a tank top. Jeremy's hair had grown out considerably as well, for it stuck out in several directions, and the parts that didn't stick out reached the blades of his shoulders. Jeremy leaned his head against the steel wall of his cage, and he closed his eyes, not caring that the position hurt his neck or that it was bending his glasses out of shape. "It's cold here, isn't it, Jeremy?" A sing-song sweet voice asked him, and Jeremy opened his deep blue eyes. The voice had been sweet but bitter, and Jeremy both loved it and hated it. He wanted to hear it again but he wanted it to leave him alone as well. "It's about to get a lot colder for you." The voice stated.

It was a strange feeling he felt for that voice. Jeremy wasn't sure he liked it.

He sat up to look for the source. Where at first he'd seen nothing but the moon's reflection and the rock out of the lake, he saw a girl. She was average height, and she stood out of the rock, dancing gracefully on what Jeremy was sure must've been moss-covered and damp. Her hair was long, flowing gracefully in the wind Jeremy could not feel. Her hair was dark, shining beautifully in the silver moonlight. Her eyes were almond-shaped, and the color of violets. They sparkled in the moonlight, hiding the sins Jeremy knew lay beneath the surface of the glacier he stared at. Her skin was probably the strangest thing about her, because it was a strange purplish-grey color.

The girl danced to center stage—or more of, center rock—and continued her poem-like warning. "But don't bother bundling up…" The wind blew her dark hair around and into her face, and she pushed it away. "…I hear Hell is lovely this time of year."

The girl jumped back and Jeremy lunged forward to the front of his cage. The bars kept his hand from reaching the girl, and the anklet he'd not noticed before kept him bound to the wall. The girl recovered from the shock of his sudden movement and laughed. "Ah, ah, ah, Jeremy—don't touch the art." The girl posed, her skintight leather outfit skimpy, slutty, but so beautiful. Jeremy tried harder to reach her. She laughed harder. "Oh, sweetie, you and I both know that's never going to work!"

This didn't faze the thirteen-year-old blond boy. He kept reaching through the bars, trying to reach the girl. What he would do once he actually reached her, Jeremy wasn't exactly sure. He'd not yet thought that far. He wanted to kill her, to love her, to smack her, to kiss her… he didn't really care. "Maybe it would if you moved a bit closer…"

"He speaks!" The girl exclaimed, laughing manically. "I must admit, it took longer to get _you _here than it takes most men twice your age. You've got a will that is—or was—very strong." The girl complimented, lifting her hair up with her forearms. "Especially in comparison to most thirteen-year-old boys I've seen…"

Jeremy made a grunting noise as he tried his hardest to reach the girl. Laughing, the girl added, "And trust me, Jeremy, I've seen a lot of thirteen year old boys since you." The harder he tried, the farther way she seemed to get. "All of them… unsatisfactory, to say the least. Most of the ones after you were _here_ before you, actually! You were defiantly an oddity."

The girl looked at Jeremy, and she smirked. "You haven't given up yet, have you?" She asked. "You're nearly dead and you're still strong. I can't believe it." Jeremy suddenly fell forward into the lake as the cage he'd been in disintegrated. "And now you're closer than ever before."

Jeremy reached for her one last time, and she jumped up to avoid his grasp. She landed on his fingers, and he screamed in the pain, his back arching. Her bat-like wings unfolded, and she waved good-bye. "See you in Hell, Jeremy! In the meantime, say hello to the Prince of Darkness for me!"

Jeremy was stunned still for a moment as the girl flew off. He reached up for the rock to pull himself up onto it, but before he could, he sunk below the water, and he felt as if he was drowning. Jeremy was an excellent swimmer, and water was the element he could control, and yet he was drowning. But as he drowned, the feelings of hate and lust faded away. There was nothing of that sort left—only the painful memories that had been forever scarred on his soul by the feelings.

He wanted the scars gone. He wanted his innocence back. But it was too late. Jeremy could feel it in his bones, in his every muscle and in his mind.

He was dying. He was _really _dying.

The water faded, and for a moment, Jeremy simply floated, as if by magic. The feeling was too good to last, and he began to fall. He wanted to scream, but Jeremy held his tongue. He knew that oxygen was too precious to let go when falling. Once the body ran out of oxygen—BANG! Death.

Jeremy squeezed his eyes shut and waited to die. He waited, and he no longer felt like he was falling. He opened his eyes. A soft pink glow surrounded him, and he saw a word written in the darkness that was all around. 'LAURELET,' the letters read, and Jeremy was very confused. The word vanished, and was replaced with 'AELITA.' He looked at it, and he repeated, "Aelita…"

The glow vanished, and Jeremy fell again, but only for a moment. He hit the darkness with a satisfying 'thump,' and he saw a glow in the distance. Jeremy stood up nervously, and he walked towards it. His mind raced with thoughts about Laurelei, and what Aelita could be, and what the light could be, and why the heck he was even walking towards the stupid light when everyone always said 'don't go to the light!'. Jeremy reached the light faster than expected.

Inside the light there was a girl. Her hair was short, pink and beautiful, but a different beautiful than the hair of the girl—Jeremy remembered the girl from earlier as Laurelei. Her eyes were shut, as if she were asleep. Her skin was pale, as if she'd not been outside in her entire life. Her limbs seemed thin, supporting Jeremy's previous observation. The girl was human, but the glow was magical. Jeremy tilted his head, his hair still longer than he would have liked but not nearly as long as earlier; and he thought about reaching forward to hold the girl's face. He _wanted _to hold her, but not the same sort of want as before.

Earlier, the want was because he couldn't control himself, as if he had to, as if he'd retorted with his primordial instincts. The want towards the human girl was because he simply wanted to—it was not as if he _had_ to.

Jeremy hesitated. The darkness beneath him creaked, as if his hesitation had made the darkness weaker. The sound was ominous in the otherwise dead-silent and endless darkness. It was enough to inspire Jeremy to touch the girl he'd seen, and her eyes snapped open, revealing them to be a lush and piercing green. She took a step backwards, frightened by Jeremy and his seemingly instantaneous appearance, and she looked around. She spoke, but the language sounded confusing and primitive. Jeremy tried to question it, but his words were silent.

Jeremy reached out for her again, and she waved her hands back and forth, as if to tell him not to. He was able to understand a few words like, 'father,' 'I,' 'out,' 'you,' and 'in.' She looked around again, and she ran. Jeremy called out for her, and it was silent again. His voice suddenly recaptured its volume, and he screamed, "_Wait!_"

The girl didn't stop. She vanished into the darkness. The darkness made loud sounds like cracking ice beneath Jeremy's feet. Before the darkness collapsed, Jeremy looked up, and the silhouette of Laurelei stood before him. "_Adieu, Jeremy, mon ancien amour._"

The silhouette vanished. The darkness beneath Jeremy's feet collapsed. This time, he could not help but scream.

*_Entrance of the Gladiators _is more commonly known as that music they play at the circus.


	3. Chapter 3

_Chapter Three: First Impressions_

Waldo Schaffer opened his front door late in the evening. He'd spent most of his day preparing his students for his exam that he was giving the following day, and the rest of his day had consisted of supervising his nephew, Odd Della-Robbia, at his detention. Odd's detention would have killed two hours of work, but he was unruly and really made two more hours of work. Waldo removed his jacket and hung it on the coat hanger next to the doorway. Anthea entered the hallway and kissed her husband's cheek, and she stated, "You're late. I already ate dinner."

"I had to supervise a detention. I'm not ever doing that again; not for that kid." Waldo huffed, adjusting his glasses on his nose. "What did you cook for dinner?"

"Waldo, you and I both know that I can't cook." Anthea crossed her arms, and Waldo didn't seem to notice the defensive posture. "Besides the detention, did anything else interesting happen today?"

"Not really. I'm telling you, I think most of those kids don't understand science these days." Waldo held his temples with his fingers, annoyed and obviously worn out. "Delmas' daughter is probably the thickest of all, if not second to Odd."

"Diane's Odd?" Anthea asked, and she placed her arms on her hips. "I would have thought Diane would have raised him better. She knows how important science is to you, and that you teach science at Kadic." Anthea shrugged. She and Waldo entered the kitchen, and Anthea watched as Waldo opened the cabinet and pulled out a plate of food. Waldo began to ate, and he looked up to his wife.

"That's a little freaky, honey." Waldo admitted. Anthea nodded in agreement, and Waldo realized what he'd done—or more of, what he hadn't done. "How was your day? Did anything out of the ordinary happen?"

Anthea smiled. "My day was fine, but something did happen that was a bit of an oddity." She waited for Waldo to ask what, but when he didn't, she continued. "An elf and a wizard tried to steal something from your office. As it turns out, they were looking for the antidote for the elf's brother."

Waldo almost swallowed his fork. "Did they find it? Did you stop them? The medicine in my office is not legal in France, Anthea!" Waldo demanded, slamming his fork on the table like an upset king.

"Clam down! They couldn't find it, and _I_ found _them_ before they managed to really start looking, anyway. Besides, what they needed wasn't in there." Anthea motioned for her husband to chill. "Her brother was poisoned by a gancanagh."

"That's unusual. Did you give it to them?"

"Yes, but her brother wasn't with them when—"

"You let them leave with it?"

"Of course not!"

"Did you leave with them?"

"_No!_ I made them bring her brother here." Anthea placed her finger on her husband's mouth before he could protest again. "And what she'd told me about her brother and the poisoning was so understated it was almost not true. It was so much worse than I'd originally thought."

"That's very interesting," Waldo finally said after staring at Anthea for a few moments.

Anthea and Waldo were silent for a few moments, and when Waldo left the topic alone, Anthea realized her husband did not fully understand the subject. "The gancanagh wasn't a man, Waldo."

"That's nice, dear."

"And the elf's brother is still here."

Waldo said nothing for a moment. "What?" He finally managed. "What did you say?"

"He's still here. He was in the sleeping stage, and he'd already started the nightmare. He didn't wake up after I gave him the antidote."

"Anthea, why would you _do_ that?"

"Why _wouldn't _I do that?"

"He's a bad influence!"

"For who?"

Waldo rolled his eyes. "You know who!"

"No, I don't think I do."

"He's a _boy! _We've got a daughter! An ill, innocent daughter! And he used to be addicted to a woman before! Who's to say he won't do that again?"

"_I _say he's not going to do that again. I'm not going to let him _near_ Aelita. And he wasn't addicted to the girl, but the poison in her skin."

"He's leaving." Waldo concluded. "Sooner rather than later. _Tonight._"

Anthea was at first angry, but then nervous. "He… can't."

"What do you mean, 'he can't?'"

"Apparently, Hermitage doesn't want the boy to have the antidote for free, and it placed Aelita's name on his forehead. I'll bet he won't even be able to leave the property line without Aelita's permission until Hermitage decides that he no longer has a debt."

"Well," Waldo said, sighing a bit. "We'd better just hope that comes soon."

Waldo closed the door to the spare bedroom. He felt awful for the elf boy, who was still asleep. He walked up the stairs and entered his daughter's bedroom. Though it was approaching ten o'clock, Aelita was still curled up on her bed, reading. She looked up at her father and smiled. "Hi, Daddy!" She greeted sweetly, as usual.

"Hey, sweetheart, how're you feeling?" Waldo asked, closing the door behind him.

"No different than usual. Why?"

"Just something… unusual; nothing that is of your concern. Anything interesting happen while I was away?"

"Well, when I got out of the shower this morning, I saw this weird glowing thing, and it resembled a piece of paper." Aelita thought, and she continued. "A feather pen appeared at the same time as the paper, and it offered itself to me. I took the pen and the paper revealed this writing that asked for my signature, so I wrote it on the line that had appeared with the text. That was definitely stranger than one would tend to expect." Aelita looked in confusion at her father's shocked expression. "What's wrong?"

"Nothing… nothing at all… good night, I'll see you in the morning and don't forget to take your medicine." Waldo hurried to leave. He kissed his daughter and closed the door behind him as he left. Aelita sighed, grabbed the pill that had been left out for her earlier by her mother, and swallowed it with a drink of water.

Aelita had frail features, and it didn't help she'd been babied almost all her life. Her hair was short, pink and kept neat, and her eyes were piercing and lush green. Her skin was pale from lack of exposure to sun, but her eyes held true to the fact Aelita was taken with books. She wasn't allowed outside her room, and no one, besides her parents, was allowed inside her room, so she usually didn't dress in clothes, per se, as she dressed in nightclothes. Aelita wore a nightdress that reached just above her knees. It was off-white, and the lace around the short sleeves and hem was pale pink.

"I'm not stupid," Aelita muttered, closing her book and placing it on the nightstand next to her bed. "I know that _something_ is going on…" Aelita turned off the light and smirked with a hint of an evil secret. "…and I know that, in your haste, you forgot to lock my door."


	4. Chapter 4

_Chapter Four: New Surroundings_

Jeremy sat up quickly, waking up in new surroundings. The room was rather plain—there was a bookshelf, a desk, and a bed, but that was pretty much it—and Jeremy couldn't remember seeing it before. Wherever the group went, there was always somewhere familiar to stay, whether it was Jeremy and Lyna's parents' house in West Virginia or the abandoned village where Ulrich's corpse had been found, and they rarely ever used a place that was unfamiliar to stay. Yumi, Gus and Ulrich could pull off human appearances, but Lyna and Jeremy could not. This caused a slim-to-none chance that humans would—or even bother—house the five. So Jeremy was sort of frightened at the room, though there was nothing in it worth fretting about.

Jeremy reached for his glasses, and when he found them in an area that he usually left them, Jeremy looked at the nightstand of which they'd been on. He noticed the note left by Lyna, and he picked it up to read it. _Jeremy—the gang and I are worried about you. If it isn't an ungodly hour when you wake up, drop us a call. Don't be afraid to tell me what you need, either, because I'll bring it. Besides, no one here wants to take care of your stupid ferret. –Lyna. _Jeremy raised an eyebrow. It wasn't that the note was all that confusing, but Lyna hadn't bothered to tell him where his cell phone was. He flipped the note over. _P.S—Ulrich put your cell phone in your front pocket, right side._ Jeremy's hand flew to his pocket, where he found his cell phone and pulled it out to check the time. It was nearly midnight. Jeremy smirked. He thought about how Lyna said not to call her at an ungodly hour and how calling her then would be payback for all those times in the past where she'd called him at midnight.

Those times had ended, though, Jeremy remembered. Jeremy had become so angry in the past that Lyna was afraid to call him at midnight. Jeremy had _scared _his younger sister.

Jeremy felt awful.

Jeremy stood up, and he opened the door and quietly snuck out into the hallway. Across the hall, he found a bathroom, and he examined himself in the mirror.

He looked as awful as he felt. His hair was messy and much longer than he remembered—he remembered letting it grow out for Laurelei, who said he would look nice with long hair—and it looked as if he'd not washed or brushed it for months and months. He had dark circles under his eyes, and the purplish burns on his skin looked worse than he remembered. It was then that he realized someone had removed his turtleneck, and he looked around the bathroom for it in vain. Jeremy did, however, find a hair tie, and he pulled back his hair into a ponytail with it.

Jeremy flipped off the bathroom light and looked around, keeping close to the wall and trying not to make a sound. He removed his shoes and revealed his white socks. The socks cut off before his ankle. Lyna hated it when he wore ankle socks with his shoes. Jeremy left his shoes by the front door respectively.

After that, he came across the kitchen and realized how completely starving he was. He flipped on the light and opened the cabinets in search of food. He found nothing in the first cabinet he opened. He thought about what he usually ate for breakfast—after waking up, breakfast was usually the first meal Jeremy thought about—and how his mom—technically, she was Lyna's mom, but Lyna's mom had married Jeremy's dad—would have hot chocolate, cereal and, when she made waffles, maple syrup ready for him. He opened the second cabinet and smelled hot cocoa coming from the first cabinet he opened. Jeremy blinked and said, "Okay, now this place is just screwing with me. I hate this place." He opened the first cabinet again and found what he'd just been thinking of—hot chocolate, cereal and maple syrup. Jeremy blinked. "I'm sorry, O Powerful Being of whom inhabits this place, and I didn't mean that. I'm actually in love with you right now." Jeremy removed the food from the cabinets.

He arranged the food the way he wanted it, and after he did so, he simply stared at it. He thought for a moment, poured the hot cocoa on his cereal and then poured maple syrup on top of that. He smiled triumphantly as he ate the strange mixture. "I love this place!" He muttered.

Aelita had been in the downstairs study belonging to her mother at the time Jeremy flipped on the light to the kitchen. She turned to look at the light for a moment before returning to what she was doing. Aelita skimmed the titles of the books her mother had on her desk, and found the one she was looking for. '_Domestic Oddities and the Magical World_,' it was called, and Aelita opened it to the table of contents. There was a list of strange things Aelita had come to expect of haunted houses—ghosts, floating objects, screaming women, so on and so forth. But the one that caught Aelita's eye was about spirits in houses where no spirits existed. Skimming it, Aelita read about how humans sometimes had powers and if these humans fell ill with a special disease, the place they lived in would absorb most of the energy used towards the human's powers. In return, the domicile would use the power it took in the best interest of the human, and in a way, the domicile was alive.

Aelita closed the book. She remembered having special powers in her life, powers somewhat like Matilda had in Ronald Dahl's _Matilda_, with some differences here and there. When she'd fallen ill when she was five, Aelita found she was unable to use those powers. But the occurrence she had witnessed earlier in the day that was clearly a demonstration of Aelita's powers. Aelita put the book down and left the study.

As she started to go up the stairs, she heard a voice from the kitchen. She was nervous, not recognizing it as her mother or her father. She stepped off the stairs and snuck over to the wall next to the kitchen. Aelita held her breath as she braved to look into the kitchen. She saw an elf inside; shirtless and with purple burns. His hair was tied back with what Aelita recognized as one of her mother's blue hair ties, and his feet were covered in white socks. Though he was not looking to Aelita, she could see that his eyes were a deep blue and blocked by glasses. Aelita was very confused. She'd simply thought elves were imaginary creatures, not beings that actually existed. The closest thing she'd ever seen to an elf was the elfin doll her parents had given to her the Christmas after she'd fallen ill, of which she'd given the name Puck, meaning 'goblin.' Aelita let out the breath she was holding without realizing it at first.

The elf turned, and Aelita ducked behind the wall to avoid being seen. Aelita was not told much by her parents, but what they had told her was that it was best no one knew she existed, and being seen would threaten her invisibility. She held her breath again, this time covering her mouth as she did so. Her heart beat faster. It took a few moments, but the elf turned away again. Aelita moved her hand from her mouth to her heart. Waiting for a sign that he'd turned his back fully, Aelita looked around for his shoes.

She thought it was funny that she was looking for something she wasn't entirely sure that the elf had. She'd simply assumed that he had shoes because he was wearing socks, and she thought it was pretty stupid to walk around with just socks and no shoes when outside. Aelita knew for a fact that the elf hadn't been at Hermitage for very long, and that automatically meant he'd spent, at some point or another, time outside. Because of this, Aelita wanted to see what kind of shoes he had worn.

It was silly that she felt that way. Aelita didn't wear shoes very often. She didn't care for shoes. But she wanted to see his.

She spotted them next to the door. After making sure the elf wasn't watching, she ran forward to the door and picked up his shoes. There were too small to fit her father, and they weren't women's shoes, so they couldn't have belonged to Aelita's parents. Hearing the elf starting to move again, Aelita gathered what remained of her courage, and, no longer caring if she was heard or not, rushed up the stairs. She slipped at the top of the stairs, and she released a small screech as she fell. She scrambled back onto her feet, opened her bedroom door and closed it as quietly as she could.

It was after she'd shut the door and laid down in her bed that Aelita remembered she still had the elf's shoes.

Jeremy had heard someone release a breath, and that was the first time he'd turned around. He'd disregarded the noise, and he'd returned to what he was doing. The house was silent for a few minutes, and then Jeremy heard footsteps. Small footsteps, like those Lyna probably would have made if Lyna could make a sound with her feet when she ran. Jeremy didn't turn around right away, thinking that the sound _had_, in fact, been made by Lyna. He remembered only moments later that Lyna didn't make footsteps, and then that the note had told Jeremy to call her when he woke up. Lyna wouldn't have bothered to tell Jeremy to call her if she was at the same place as him. He turned slowly, not wanting to see what had made the sound. He could have sworn that he'd seen a girl run by as he did so.

Jeremy leaned against the counter with a smile, feeling silly and a bit paranoid. He felt this way until he heard a screech and a thump. He rushed to the entryway of the kitchen and looked up the staircase, seeing nothing. Jeremy probably would have called himself crazy had the sounds not been so real. He looked around, trying to pinpoint the source of the sound. He saw nothing. He looked around once more, and he heard a woman say, "Oh, Jeremy, you've awakened. When did you wake up?"

His blue eyes flashed back to the stairs, where an older version of the pink haired girl he'd seen in his dream stood. He flushed, and he said, "Oh, um, not too long ago. Only about half an hour, I think." Jeremy's defensive pose softened, and he rubbed his neck. "Do I know you…?"

"No." The woman responded point-blankly. "I'm Anthea. Did you call your sister? She was worried about you."

"Lyna? No. She told me not to call her at an ungodly hour, and its half past midnight." Jeremy shrugged. "Did she bring me here?"

"Yes. Along with a few of her friends. No one mentioned their names. There were four of them, besides your sister." Anthea crossed her arms.

"Oh. I know who you're talking about." Jeremy nodded. He looked around and asked innocently, "Am I dead? If so, where did I end up?"

Anthea pulled a puzzled expression, and then she laughed. "No! No, you're still alive."

"Oh," Jeremy stated simply. "Because I feel dead."

"Understandably."

"You wouldn't happen to know what happened to my shirt, would you?"

"I put it in the washer. When I administered the antidote, I think the turtleneck rubbed some skin raw and soaked up blood. There were dried blood stains on it, anyway."

"Ah. That explains why it wasn't in the bedroom, the bathroom or the kitchen."

"Why'd you check the kitchen?"

"I got hungry… besides, those cabinets are magic!" Jeremy couldn't help but smile at that, pointing back to the cabinets. "And maple syrup tastes great on cereal in hot chocolate!"

Anthea blinked. "I… what?" She asked. "That's kinda gross."

"You would think so, but it really isn't!"

"I'll take your word for it." Anthea looked at the elf, and she smiled gently. "Feel free to use any of the utilities. Don't forget to call your sister; she's probably so worried right now that she's still awake. After what happened this morning, I'd do the same thing."

Jeremy nodded. Anthea looked once more at him. "Good night, Jeremy."

Jeremy smiled. "Good morning, Anthea."


	5. Chapter 5

_Chapter Five: Drop Dead Duck_

Laurelei looked over the fence to Hermitage, knowing for a fact that Jeremy's signature had last come from this place. It wasn't very often that Laurelei checked whether or not her victims were dead, but it wasn't very often her victims were like Jeremy, either. She opened the gate, and she walked down the path. Laurelei had tied her dark hair into a ponytail, and she'd exchanged her usual outfit for something warmer. She wore a white metallic shirt, a tan sweater with cropped sleeves and a furred hood, white fingerless gloves, white skinny jeans and tan furred boots.

When she reached the house, Laurelei saw Jeremy's friends out on the porch, but Jeremy wasn't with them. She recognized each of them, and she laughed. Had Jeremy not been so hardheaded, she'd not have victimized him. His friends had never liked her. To be honest, Jeremy hadn't liked her, either. Laurelei smirked. She had a way with men.

Jeremy's sister looked up, and her eyes narrowed. Lyna began to stand, but Yumi pushed down on her shoulder to calm her and make her sit. Lyna did so, but her eyes never fell from Laurelei. "What do you want?" Lyna called to her, fists clenched.

"To see Jeremy," Laurelei smiled, acting as innocent as she could. Laurelei had pulled all the poison from her skin to her lips. It gave her the appearance of wearing purple lipstick, and her skin was the color of an apricot crayon.

Lyna twitched a bit, and the others stood. Lyna ran forward, jumped over the porch and landed right in front of Laurelei. "I. Will. Not. Let. You. Near. My. Brother." Lyna warned heavily, pushing her face as close as she could to Laurelei's.

Laurelei said nothing, pushing her hair from her face. She then pushed on Lyna's forehead, lowering Lyna's heels to the pathway below. After doing so, Laurelei walked past Lyna to the porch, and she felt fire skim her forearm. Laurelei turned, and Lyna had taken an offensive position, her fingers smoking.

Laurelei frowned. She'd forgotten Lyna could not only control fire, but that she also had a very short fuse when it came to her.

She pulled out a gun from her jacket pocket, pointed it at the elf girl and pulled the trigger. It missed Lyna, but not by much, and Laurelei felt something smack her neck. Her eyes flashed to Yumi, who at the same time caught the fan that had smacked Laurelei. The boys next to Yumi had taken offensive positions. As Laurelei turned the gun away from Lyna to the three new attackers, Lyna ran from the gancanagh, rounding the corner of the building.

Ulrich looked at Lyna, and Laurelei knew that Ulrich had a bad habit of saying the wrong thing at the wrong time. "Lyna! Where're you going?"

Lyna stopped, and she yelled, "I'm not going to let her hurt my brother again!" Lyna rushed away, and Laurelei followed her. When she spotted Lyna again, Lyna seemed prepared to fight, and Laurelei almost laughed at the innocence of the elf girl. Laurelei fired her gun again, scaring three crows from their nests in the trees. Lyna ducked away from the bullet again, and she placed her hand on the earth and closed her eyes.

Laurelei couldn't help but laugh again, and she asked, "My dear, what do you plan on doing?" She spoke in a mocking tone with false love in her voice. Lyna's eyebrows furrowed. Laurelei had used a similar voice when she spoke to Jeremy. Lyna hated Laurelei's voice, her face, her clothing… every little trait, however small, made Lyna's very skin crawl with a red-hot fiery hate of… Lyna paused during her thoughts. A red-hot fiery hate of hate, Lyna finally decided on.

The earth a few meters in front of Lyna opened up, and hot lights radiated from the crack like an aura of fire. Lyna stood, and she motioned for something to rise. Lava bubbled from the crack, and Laurelei jumped.

"So," Laurelei joked, "I guess you can teach an old dog new tricks." Laurelei dodged incoming lava, and she ran to Lyna. Laurelei sucker-punched her, and the lava Lyna had been using collapsed as Lyna did. "But the old tricks work just as well, my dear!"

Laurelei looked around. She'd not seen Jeremy during the fight, nor had she heard him. But she'd felt his signature, and Jeremy's signature was unmistakable. She looked for anything odd about the backyard, and she spotted a slab of granite. The backyard was natural in everything, in its trees, grass and rocks, but the granite was a strange thing where it was. It was rounded at the top, and placed under a tree. The earth in front of the granite slab had been torn up, and recently, at that. The earth that had been torn up was about the size of a human, and Laurelei approached it.

_Jeremy Belpois October 31, 1996-October 4, 2009_

Laurelei said nothing, but her hand went slowly from her side to her mouth. "Perhaps…" Laurelei muttered as the rest of the gang rounded the corner to the backyard. There was no time or place in her mind to wonder why they'd waited to come. She assumed that Lyna had told them not to help her if Laurelei showed up. "Perhaps this wasn't a good idea." Laurelei finished.

Jeremy's grave had been marked with the previous day as his date of death. She'd been right about the fact he'd died the night before. Laurelei wanted to cry, but she didn't know why the tears wanted to come. Lyna stirred, and when she sat up, she looked at Laurelei and screamed, "_You murderous slut! You killed my brother!_"

Lyna stood up and continued. "_What did you have against him? He didn't do anything! We weren't a threat until after!_" Lyna was talking about how the gang had found out Xana, leader of the clan most magical creatures belonged to, had plans to destroy the human race. The gang had been upset because they knew humans, they were friends with humans, and magical creatures had once had human rulers that were kind and just. The descendants of the human rulers had been said to live on Earth, and killing the human race could prove dangerous to finding them again.

Xana was Laurelei's father.

Laurelei looked to Lyna, then to the others, and back to Jeremy's grave. She looked once to Lyna again, who'd begun to cry. She hadn't even tried to hide it, as she usually did when they came. Laurelei knew Lyna hated having others see her cry, but the fact Lyna didn't care at this point meant that Jeremy was dead.

He was _really _dead.

Laurelei spread her wings and flew away from Hermitage after confirming Jeremy's death. When she returned to the headquarters she'd stayed at, she accessed Jeremy's file and marked 'deceased' on it.

Meanwhile, Lyna picked herself up off the dirt, dusted what remained of it off her dress, wiped the eye drops from her eyes and smiled like she had an evil secret. "That went according to plan." She announced, placing her hands on her hips. "Great job, everyone! We won't have to worry about that bitch anymore."

Gus gripped Ulrich in a headlock and gave him a noogie. Ulrich laughed and tried to escape. Yumi laughed like a maniac at both of them. Lyna rubbed her neck, which still hurt from the sucker punch, but laughed. The four entered Hermitage and walked into the den. Jeremy sat in an armchair, reading a book that, as he'd told them earlier when the four arrived, was about a technocracy. He looked up to them and asked, "What's up?"

Yumi shrugged. "Oh, nothing. How's the book?" She walked closer to him.

"Great!" Jeremy told her, and he looked to the others, who were still smiling with evil lying beneath. "You guys look like you've got an evil secret."

Ulrich shrugged and walked to stand by Yumi. Lyna sat on the arm of the chair and fiddled subconsciously with Jeremy's ponytail. Gus leaned over the armchair. "We don't have an evil secret, Einstein." Lyna reassured him. "Trust me, alright? There's no way in hell that it's an evil secret."

Anthea had watched the four enter the den, and she pulled out the key again and inserted it into the lock of the door in front of the stairs. She turned the key and then the knob, but the door didn't open. Anthea rolled her eyes and turned the key again, which opened the door. Aelita sat cross-legged on her bed, book in her lap and Puck on her head, hanging limp over her forehead. "Hi!" Aelita greeted, smiling warmly.

"Hey there," Anthea smiled back, closing the door. "Your father forgot to lock the door last night."

"Did he? I hadn't noticed." Aelita asked.

"He did. I'm glad you hadn't noticed, though; your curiosity can get the best of you sometimes." Anthea shrugged, and Aelita rolled her eyes playfully. "Are you hungry?"

"No, Daddy brought me breakfast before he left. I'm not hungry at all." Aelita closed her book, apparently finished with it, and got out of bed to return it to her bookshelf. Anthea took it for her, and Aelita shrugged.

Anthea looked to Aelita with motherly concern, and she asked, "Aelita, isn't that too big, Aelita? The tag said it was supposed to be higher than that."

"Huh?" Aelita asked, looking down to her nightgown. "No, I think it only looks so huge because I'm so small. It fits fine. I don't want it to be any smaller."

"Alright… tell me if you change your mind." Anthea nodded before she left.

Aelita told her mother good-bye before she left. When she heard the door lock, Aelita sighed in relief. "I hate lying to you." She admitted to the door, as if her mother was still there. Aelita lifted up her pillow and pulled out the elf's shoes, of which she'd been too afraid to sneak out and return.

They were blue with flexible soles and long tongues. She looked to Puck and pretended he'd said something. "Yes, I know I'll have to return his shoes eventually. I just don't know when. That was the first time in eight years that Daddy forgot to lock my door." She waited as the elf doll said something else in her mind. "Ask Hermitage? I doubt Hermitage will listen, Puck…"

The wind blew against the old house, and it creaked. Aelita listened to the creak, and she looked back to Puck. "But, then again, who knows? Not tonight, though… it's too soon."

Pulling on her brother's arm, Lyna dragged Jeremy out of the den and down the stairs. Jeremy managed to free his arm and he entered his room, opening the cage door for his ferret so it could climb up his arm. The ferret, Mort, rested around Jeremy's neck and then watched its surroundings with intense eyes.

Lyna tapped her foot impatiently, already wearing her shoes again and staring at Jeremy. "Are you ready yet? Let's go! The others are already out in the yard… I don't want to miss Gus vs. Magic Spells 101!"

"I'm coming!" Jeremy sighed, walking out of his bedroom and to the front door. He turned around a bit to look up at the door at the top of the stairs. Jeremy wondered what was behind it for a moment, but he dismissed the thought. He bent over to pick up his shoes, but it was then that he noticed they weren't there. He looked around, but when he still didn't see them, he cried out, "_What the hell happened to my shoes?_"


	6. Chapter 6

_Chapter Six: Behind Locked Doors_

Aelita closed a book, lost in thought and unable to continue reading. In fact, she'd stopped paying attention to the context of the book hours ago, but she'd only closed the book because keeping it open any longer would have made her fall asleep. Aelita had a goal to stay awake for as long as she could. She smoothed her nightgown and looked around her bedroom. It was the same as always, for nothing ever changed behind her door when it was closed. The door was always closed. Even when she knew it had been left unlocked the previous night, she closed the door when she left her room.

Leaning back, Aelita thought about how many conversations were held outside her door. She remembered learning she was sick by one of those conversations, and that she was virtually powerless. It bothered her to know these things, and it bothered her even more to know she had known these things since she was very small.

Aelita wanted to throw something. But what? She resisted the urge.

Rolling off her bed and walking shakily to the window, Aelita nervously pulled back the grey curtains and peaked outside. She saw kids her age out in the forest, running about and taking notes. She felt a twinge of jealousy for a moment, and she was shocked at the feeling. She traced her finger down the window to where the window locked from the inside. Aelita laughed, realizing the window was the only thing in her room that locked from the inside.

She flipped the lock, and she pushed open the window, the October air circling her and blowing her musky bedroom air out to replace it with the warm autumn smells. Her nightdress billowed around, and Aelita rested her elbows on the windowsill. She hoped to one day walk in the sun, and suddenly, a very painful emotion hit her.

_What hope has the girl who is sick?_ There _was _no hope.

Reaching out for the windows to pull them in and latch them shut again, Aelita muttered, "What hope has the girl who is sick?" She pulled the curtains together and added, "I can dream for a life past this place, but why bother?" Aelita wanted to cry. She bit her lip and sat down on her bed, and she pulled her knees up to her chest to rest her chin on them. As she closed her eyes, the tears squeezed themselves out.

It was in this position that Aelita muffled her sobs.

And it was this position that faded as Aelita drifted to sleep.

The leaves had golden yellow and pale orange hues, and they were brighter due to the sun shining down on them. There was a lake surrounded by trees on two opposite sides, a clearing on one of the remaining sides and a cliff on the other. Cascading down from the cliff was a waterfall, making warm and inviting sounds. Somewhere, off in the distance, '_Entrance of the Gladiators_' played. The place was warm, the place was inviting, and Aelita was too dazzled by its natural beauty to move at first. Instead, she moved closer to the trees, and as she did so, she could see the apples dangling by thin stems off the branches. Aelita smiled widely, and she reached up to take one. She could not reach it.

As if by magic, the tree leaned forward enough so Aelita could take the apple. Before she bit into it, Aelita looked around for anything sinister, but even then, the place was a good and welcoming place. She bit into the apple, and it tasted sweet.

Aelita approached the lake, and upon looking into it, she did not see her reflection. The girl reflected into the water, like Aelita, had pink hair and green eyes, but those were the only similarities. The reflection had longer hair that was curly, and her skin was not as pale as Aelita's. Her eyes seemed more alive, and across her forehead, she wore a silver band. Even their dresses differed—Aelita still wore her nightdress while the girl had on a green dress with elaborate sleeves and a pink vest with a lighter pink design.

The girl seemed regal, and so much happier. Aelita had never seen such a person.

But Aelita felt as if she knew this girl. Aelita felt a connection with this girl. When Aelita touched the reflection of the girl, she vanished, and she was replaced by Aelita's own reflection.

The happiness and vigor of the girl's green eyes remained in Aelita's reflection.

Ghost-like figures surrounded Aelita, one being a man—a king, more of—another a woman—a queen, judging by her silver crown like that of the girl who's reflection had been lost—and the third was a small child—the other figures seemed to be the child's parents—of about three years. As Aelita stared at them, Aelita realized that the man and woman resembled her own parents, but younger, and happier. The child wore a dress that Aelita remembered.

The child wore Aelita's dress. It was a dress from when Aelita was still a small child herself, but Aelita remembered wearing the dress one day, and the next time she tried to put it on, her mother told her she was never to wear the dress again.

The area took on a serious tone as a ghostly figure of an elf—the figure resembled Puck—ran forward to the man and woman. "My lord, my lord!" The elf called, "We are under attack! You must leave!"

"What is going on, Puck, my boy?" The man laughed, patting the elf on his shoulder. "No creature dares attack my castle. Besides, it is morning; creatures usually do not come out until night because they burn. You have a special spell on you to stop that from happening to you, if you recall."

"I know, sire, but the vampires…" Puck explained, "…they dislike humans in charge! They are attacking! Please, my lord…"

The child laughed, running over to Puck and gave him a hug. "Princess, please explain to your father that he must go!" Puck begged the child. "I've family on the other side; on Earth. They've set up a residence for you…"

Aelita wondered about the scene as it began to fade. Puck was the only thing remaining besides Aelita, and the elf walked over to her. He said but one thing: "Aking mga babae Aelita, tandaan: ipakita ang iyong sarili."

Aelita, somewhere inside, knew what Puck had told her. Puck watched as Aelita fell through the darkness. "Dapat ko dapat makita mo!" Puck called to Aelita, waving, and Aelita screamed.

Aelita rolled over and woke up just before she hit the floor. She stopped herself with her hands and forearms, but she still made a satisfying thump when she stopped herself. Sitting up, Aelita rubbed her neck, for her vocal cords stung. She realized she must have screamed, and she looked up onto her bed for Mister Puck. The elfin doll had disappeared. She was confused, and she skimmed the room for the doll, as if she'd put him someplace other than her bed.

Aelita's window hung open, and the wind blew the curtains around. But Puck was no where to be found.

Lyna looked down to her watch, and then back to her brother, and as she put on her shoes, she asked, "Are you going to bed anytime soon? It's nearly eleven."

"Naw, I don't need all that much sleep." Jeremy shrugged. As Lyna rolled her eyes, Jeremy laughed.

"I should say so." Lyna pointed out, gently hugging her brother and scratching the top of Mort's head. "We'll be by tomorrow. See ya!" Lyna waved as she left, closing the door quietly.

Jeremy was alone in the hallway, and he looked to his ferret. "Well, Mort, it looks like it's just you and me." He said, and Mort stared at him for a moment before jumping off his shoulder and scurrying away. "So much for that." Jeremy sighed, crossing his arms in annoyance.

He'd been left completely alone in the house. Anthea and her husband had gone out, though Jeremy didn't know where. Apparently, there was something in the old house that could not be left alone, but as long as he was there, it was alright. Jeremy walked up the stairs and placed his hand on the door next to the stairs. He didn't dare try to open it—it had been Anthea's only rule: do not open the door at the top of the stairs.

It occurred to him that he'd never really liked rules, let alone obeyed them, and as he reached for the doorknob, he heard a scream and a thump. The scream and thump made Jeremy jump, and his hand flew to the doorknob and he tried to open it, but it was locked. He looked at it, held his hand up, concentrated, and his hand took on a water-like appearance and consistency. He smirked, and he held it to the doorknob. The water unlocked the door, and Jeremy flung it open, scaring the bejeebies out of both himself and the pink-haired girl inside.

The girl's face turned a shade of pink darker than that of her hair.


	7. Chapter 7

_Chapter Seven: Clandestine Lamb_

Aelita had only been awake for several seconds. Then the elf had barged in, and she could feel her face burning from the embarrassment. She'd not been expecting him—she'd not been expecting anyone—and the fact that it was the elf she'd seen not so long ago when she shouldn't have been where she was made it awkward.

For some reason unknown to her, Aelita became very self-conscious. She silently debated whether to pull up on her nightdress' bertha* or to pull down on its hem. She stood up quickly, then questioned if she had made the right decision in standing up, but she did not want to appear indecisive, so she remained standing. Aelita bit her lip and hung her head, lifting the sides of her feet off the floor and then returning them to their original position. She repeated the pattern, hoping that she seemed fascinated with her toes instead of nervous and embarrassed.

Having seen him only briefly, he was taller than she'd thought, and his eyes were deep and cryptic. He'd seemed shocked to find her, and Aelita was fairly certain he seemed to think that he'd seen her somewhere before. The opposite was true; Aelita was sure, unless he'd seen her when she took off like a rocket for her bedroom. She wondered why he'd bothered to pick the lock, and how he'd managed to pick the lock so quickly.

Her face grew hotter as she remembered his shoes. She skimmed her room for them, and she held back a sigh when she didn't see them.

Aelita looked back to the elf, who was then leaning against the doorway. Would it be possible to sneak past him and run? She doubted it, and for some reason, she considered not being stopped by him worse than being stopped.

She still hated both ideas, but if she had to choose between the two, she'd rather be caught.

The elf seemed to be staring at her in a different way than he had been seconds earlier. It was as if Aelita was some kind of novelty, and while Aelita was uncomfortable with him staring at her, the attention was not something she was used to, and she was pretty sure she was enjoying it.

The elf opened his mouth to say something, but he closed it again as if to rephrase it. "Who are you?" He finally said, his voice different and rather pleasant for Aelita to hear. "That is to say, what are you doing here, and by that I mean…" He paused once more as he looked Aelita over, and Aelita nodded, trying to get him to finish his sentence. "Who are you?" He repeated.

Aelita had never been around someone she'd not been with her entire life. The question was new to her, though she was sure it shouldn't have been. In any case, she knew what she wanted to say, but she could not find a way to say it. "Aelita…?" She managed, not knowing if she wanted him to know or not. It was too late to take it back.

"Aelita?" He asked suddenly, as if the name had some sort of second meaning to him. "Did you say your name was Aelita?"

"Yes…?" Her voice trailed off, and she was freaking out on the inside as the elf moved closer to her.

The elf paused suddenly, held his hand to his temple and looked up to the ceiling. "This is _too _weird."

Aelita was suddenly offended. "This coming from the elf boy standing in my bedroom!" She crossed her arms and continued, "I should really be calling you weird! Too bad you're not the weirdest thing I've seen!"

The elf crossed his arms and looked at her. "Oh, yeah? Then what _is _the weirdest thing you've ever seen?"

Aelita paused. She thought a bit, and added, "No, never mind, I take that back. I'm just saying that I've seen some weird stuff and you're the weirdest by only a little bit.

"You should see my sister!" The elf protested, and the room fell silent. "Why are you locked up here alone?"

"I'm not alone. I've got my books and Puck, but I can't find Puck." Aelita said, looking around. "Besides, Mommy and Daddy come and see me all the time. But I don't see anyone else."

"Why not? You seem nice enough." The elf watched Aelita as she pushed books around, searching behind them for Puck.

"Oh. I'm sick," Aelita responded, opening her drawers and tearing through her clothes.

"Aren't we all?" The elf laughed, blushing as one of Aelita's bras landed on his ear. He brushed it away without looking at it again.

Aelita turned in confusion, and said point-blankly, "I don't know what you're talking about." She slammed the drawers and dug around in her covers, hoping to find the doll somewhere lost in them. When she didn't, she crossed her legs and folded her arms across her chest, and it was then she noticed the elf's flustered and embarrassed expression. "What?" Aelita asked, completely unaware of what was wrong.

"Nothing," The elf said, taking his hand away from his temple and pointing his fingers at Aelita, his face turned away from her and red. "I'm jealous of your innocence."

Aelita shrugged, and she stood on her bed to search for the doll on the top of her bookshelf. She stood up on her toes, but she still had to feel around to try and locate the doll. She almost lost her balance when the elf suddenly shouted, "Look, if you get the strange urge to start searching your clothes for Puck or whatever, _please _give me a head's-up so I can get the hell out of here before you do!"

Aelita opened her mouth to ask why, but the elf interrupted her with the answer. "Because with my luck your parents will come home the minute you do, they'll see you and they'll blame _me, _and trust me, with my history, they're not going to be blaming me for the loss of Puck."

"Of course not. They'll blame you for opening the door." Aelita shrugged, and at the same time wondered why she'd not found a spider's web.

The elf opened his mouth to speak, but he closed it again. "Well, yes, but that's not what I'm talking about." He waited for Aelita to say something else, but when she didn't, a light clicked on. "Oh, my god, you're such a lamb! A clandestine lamb, but nevertheless, a lamb."

She looked to the elf, and she shrugged. "I suppose."

"It means—" The elf began.

"I know what it means." Aelita interrupted. "I take it you don't consider yourself one."

"I can't. I'm _not_." The elf blushed, though she couldn't tell why. Aelita had found nothing on top of the bookshelf.

"How old are you?" Aelita asked, looking around for another place to look.

The elf did not hesitate. "I'm thirteen."

"So am I," Aelita added. "I—"

The elf interrupted her. "You cannot possibly be thirteen. You're so small!"

"I already told you, I'm sick." Aelita explained, lifting up the bed skirt, where she spotted the elf's shoes. She dropped it, hoping he hadn't seen them. "I haven't been able to go anywhere or do anything for eight years."

The elf became flustered. "Oh. Uh… I'm sorry."

"Don't be. It's not like it's your fault. Stupid fate." Aelita muttered. As the elf listened to this, he'd expected to hear a curse word instead of 'stupid,' and he held back a snicker when she didn't. "Anyway, like I was saying, if you and I are the same age, then that should make you a lamb, too."

The elf was silent for a bit. "You and I are thinking different lambs."

For a reason beyond her comprehension, Aelita became affronted. "Do I look like a lamb to you?"

The elf was silent, and he looked her over. "Is that a trick question?"

"No."

"Then yes."

"How so?"

"Well, I mean, you were nervous at first when you saw me, and when you finally relaxed it was like I wasn't even here…"

"Why does that make you think of a baby sheep?"

There was another silence. "You're still not thinking the lamb I'm thinking." The elf announced, and he reached into his pocket and pulled out a small plastic box**. "It's late. I'm going to get in trouble if I stay here any longer. 'Night."

Aelita reached forward and grabbed his wrist, which caused him to jump and spin around. "You never told me your name…" Aelita muttered as she examined his expression, one of fear and unexpectedness.

The elf's previous expression faded, and he smiled. "It's Jeremy." He turned and walked out, closing the door. Aelita heard the door click as it locked, and she wondered if the elf—Jeremy—had a key of some sort. She blushed faintly, clearly not as noticeably as she had earlier.

Aelita walked to the window and looked up to the sky. The stars and moon were still visible, but grey clouds moved in to cover the silver nocturnal features. She assumed they were rain clouds, and she closed the window and locked them shut. After pulling back the grey curtains, she turned out the light and closed her eyes as she lay in bed. She muttered something in her sleep and outside, the rain began.

Somewhere deep in the forest, a creature ran away from Hermitage. It stopped in a clearing, surrounded on all sides by dense trees. It stood in front of a puddle, and after waving a hand over it, a cloaked figure reflected in the puddle. "What is it?" The cloaked figure demanded,

"Send word to Laurelei," The creature spoke slowly. "That Jeremy is not dead."

*I have two definitions for bertha, both meaning the same thing but give different descriptions for it. The first is _the wide long collar around the shoulders of a woman's low-necked dress_ and the second is _a collar or trimming, as of lace, worn about the shoulders by women, as over a low-necked waist or dress._

**Aelita's really smart, but she doesn't get out much, so she can't tell that the small plastic box is Jeremy's cell phone.


	8. Chapter 8

_Chapter Eight: Memories of a Life_

**Fair Warning: Blood Ahead**

The rain created pitter-patter noises on Aelita's window at first, but by the time she woke up, it was a monsoon crashing heavily on the glass, creating what resembled a car wash. Aelita liked the feeling of being a little chilly, but it felt as if Aelita had been transported to the Antarctic while she was asleep. She curled up into a ball, feeling a little alone as she remembered that Puck was still missing.

Puck was a doll. How far could he have gone? Far enough, Aelita presumed. She'd been asleep longer than she'd realized the day before, and Puck could have been in Spain at the moment, for all she knew.

Aelita smelled oatmeal, and she turned to look at where the smell was coming from. Oatmeal, hot cocoa, and a croissant. Aelita smiled. _Mmm. Breakfast, _Aelita thought, and it echoed through her head. She was too tired to think of anything else, and she could have sworn that if someone tapped on her head that it would sound hollow.

Aelita knew better than that. But she didn't care.

Taking the tray that the food been left on, Aelita picked it up and transferred it to her lap. Underneath the tray was an envelope, and upon opening said envelope, Aelita saw that the only thing inside was a small pink spark. She wondered why the spark did not disintegrate or set the envelope on fire, but when she took it out, she realized it was cold. The spark danced in her hands, lighting up and creating a dazzling display of cold pink fire. Aelita's face lit up, and as it disappeared, she applauded. As the pink spark disintegrated upon itself, it formed into a small energy manifestation of the thirteen-year-old girl. The manifestation bowed, and it disappeared.

Holding the spoon in one hand and the empty envelope in another, Aelita went between scanning the envelope for further information on who had left it there and eating the breakfast that had been left for her.

The front side of the envelope was marked with a simple 'H.'

Aelita dunked the croissant in her cocoa, and she wondered of 'H.' Her mother's maiden name had been 'Hopper,' but that was the only 'H' that she knew of. She took her medicine, and having no where else to put it, Aelita placed the tray back on the nightstand.

_H. _Once a simple letter, it raced through Aelita's thoughts as though if it didn't, it would simply vanish.

* * *

"Jeremy, does this place have any soda?" Yumi asked, interrupting the urging screams of Lyna and Ulrich as Gus and Jeremy battled each other in a violent video game involving cars, guns and explosions.

Jeremy glanced to Yumi, returning his attention to the game almost immediately. "Yeah. In the cabinets. Just think of the soda you want."

Yumi nodded as she left the elf boy's bedroom, her ears pounding with the echoes of explosions and machine guns. Jeremy's instructions had seemed simple enough, but when Yumi opened a cabinet, she saw nothing inside. She thought nothing of it—she couldn't think much of anything—and opened another, repeating the pattern of opening and closing the cabinets until she'd opened and closed all of them to no avail. "Jeremy, there's nothing in here!"

There was a group groan as the video game paused, and Jeremy entered the kitchen. "What kind of soda do you want?" He asked, crossing his arms to show Yumi what he thought of the interruption. Yumi told him and smacked his arms. Jeremy opened the last cabinet Yumi had opened.

"I already looked in there. There wasn't anything—" Yumi was interrupted as Jeremy pulled out the soda Yumi had asked for and handed it to her. "Oh." She finished as Jeremy rolled his eyes and entered his bedroom again. Yumi stuck out her tongue in defiance, closed the cabinet and left the kitchen.

She paused to stare out the window at the heavy downpour of rain. She didn't like it when it rained. It was harder to communicate with Amaterasu when it rained because the clouds covered up the sun.

That didn't mean it was impossible. Yumi had been known to contact Amaterasu in some pretty sticky situations, but it did take a great deal of concentration.

Yumi picked up the book she'd used to bring Ulrich back to life. The book had multiple spells that Yumi had either mastered or had a good understanding of, but the thing she liked best about it was the page that allowed her to summon Amaterasu. She used it more often than any other, and she knew a lot about the secret world of god gossip because of it.

The book had a dark red book sock protecting it, and underneath was a mostly plain white cover with a red circle, like the Japanese flag. There was kanji on the cover as well, and though Yumi knew what it said, no one else did.

Yumi turned from the window and started back for Jeremy's room, wondering, like everyone in the gang but Jeremy did, what lay beyond the door at the top of the stairs. Yumi looked at it, and she sipped her soda as she did so. Yumi stopped and looked at it harder and with curiosity, wondering how she could open it. She could have sworn that she saw the door fade so she could see inside, but Yumi shrugged and decided it was all in her head.

The book began to glow, taking on a texture like that of the Sun in the pictures taken from satellite in outer space. The book began to give off a blinding white light. Yumi had never seen her book do anything of that sort, especially when she had said nothing. She dropped her soda, and the world seemed to move in slow motion as it fell and hit the floor, spilling its contents. The light given off by the book consumed Yumi, and it lit up the rest of the hallway.

It was funny. Yumi had said earlier that the light given off by the explosions in the video game was unrealistic, and there she was, standing in a light just like it. She would have laughed, had she not been so terrified.

* * *

Aelita saw a white light come in her room from underneath the crack separating the floor from her door. She had recently opened her book, and she sat with her legs under the covers and her book propped open on her knees. The light attracted her attention, and she wondered about it. Aelita wobbled out of bed, as she did every time she first woke up in the morning, and over to her door, crouching down to look through the keyhole.

It wasn't a tactic she used often. Usually, her home was so dull that there was nothing worth spying uncomfortably through a keyhole to see.

Through the keyhole, she could see the remnants of the light, but they faded quickly. Before a doorway on the bottom level, she spotted a girl, older than Aelita, with dark black hair. Her pupils had grown small, and Aelita assumed that the girl had been in the light when it flashed. She wore a short kimono-like dress and a yellow obi with a red string tied around it. On her feet were shoes that looked like a mix between boots that reached her hips and traditional Japanese sandals. Over the strange shoes and on the girl's arms were, at the distance Aelita was from the girl, what appeared to be pure white bandages. The area between the hem of the kimono and the top of the boots was covered in red leggings. Her hair was tied back into a bun, with some of her hair hanging loose, the loose hair reaching a few centimeters above her shoulders. The girl's face had been painted white with red eyeliner, blush and lipstick.

The girl appeared to be a modern-day geisha.

Jeremy ran from the doorway. Aelita assumed that he, too, had seen the light. "Yumi! Are you alright?" Jeremy asked, holding his hands out, and it looked like he was trying to get her to stop moving, though the girl stood still. The girl—Yumi, if Jeremy was to be believed—moved one of her hands gracefully from her side to the top of her forehead. "What happened to your book?" Jeremy continued as three others rushed from the doorway.

"Hm?" Yumi asked, looking from Jeremy and then to the others. Her voice sounded very strange, as if someone had recorded the voice of a fourteen-year-old girl and placed a full-grown woman's voice over it. "I… Yumi's fine."

One of the people who had run out after Jeremy—she was an elf, like him—crossed her arms. "Is it Talk-In-The-Third-Person Day already?" The elf girl asked, and then added, "Lyna must admit that she was not expecting it to come so soon."

Yumi narrowed her decorated eyes. "No, it's not the holiday of which you speak." Yumi walked away from the others, and then turned back to them. "I am Amaterasu, but I'm speaking through Yumi." She waved her hand, an aura surrounding her head as she did so. A similar aura surrounded Jeremy and the others, and they were moved via telekinesis back into the room of which they came. They door slammed shut, and Yumi—or Amaterasu, if she was telling the truth—walked to the bottom of the stairs, but she did not walk up them. She stood there for a moment before using the same power as before to open Aelita's locked door.

The door opened quickly and slammed against the door. The part Aelita found most confusing was that the door had opened the wrong way. The door was supposed to swing inside towards Aelita, but it had opened towards Yumi—or Amaterasu.

Aelita stood up quickly, frightened. Amaterasu—Aelita finally decided that it was Amaterasu—stepped onto the first step, but she did not step further. "I knew it," She muttered, the woman's voice dominant as she spoke. "I knew it was you."

Aelita wanted to run, but to where? Even if she knew the answer to that question, Amaterasu's stare left Aelita feeling frozen. Amaterasu seemed to be both expecting this and disappointed that Aelita did not approach her. "Aelita?" She asked, as if Aelita were asleep on her feet, "Is your name Aelita?" Amaterasu continued after Aelita nodded. "May I talk to you? Can you come closer, so that way you and I can speak?"

Aelita walked forward both willingly and with a stiffness that said it was against the will. "Yes, it must be you. It can be no other. Your resemblance is striking." Amaterasu smiled as Aelita stepped closer. Amaterasu took another step up the staircase. "You look exactly like your mother, just smaller… I remember your mother fondly. When I look at you, I see her eyes, her hair…" Amaterasu's eyes filled with tears, but she did not wipe them away. "I saw your corpse. And your mother's corpse. Your corpse… I could have sworn I held it in my arms, but here you stand."

Aelita was mesmerized by the woman she knew to be the Japanese goddess of the sun, and the unifier of Japan. "Over fourteen centuries have passed, but you seem to only be in your early teens. Oh… how to put this…?" Amaterasu curled her hand up to her lips, and she added, "I was close to your mother when you were born. We were like sisters; like two halves of the same whole… when you were born, she bestowed a great honor on me…" The woman paused, and she held her hand to her heart softly, a position commonly used when referring to one's self. "…Aelita, I'm your godmother."

Aelita managed to gain control of herself long enough to take a step back. Confused, and at lost for her connection to Amaterasu, Aelita demanded, "State your business,"

"Business?" Amaterasu asked, the fourteen-year-old girl's voice fighting for dominance. "What do you mean?"

"_What do you want?_" Aelita restated, becoming desperate.

Amaterasu pondered this. "I want to finally meet you. I knew you when you were a toddler, but no older. I, along with the others in our world, was sure you were dead." She was silent, considering what to add. "My daughter, Yumi; she knew you as well. She can't remember it; she was a year older than you, but she knew you."

Aelita was silent, not remembering much of anything.

"And I can see in your eyes that you can't remember Yumi, either. I can understand." Amaterasu continued. "You and I, my dear, are both powerful women, though you may not remember… you can learn from my failures, Aelita, if you listen."

"I'm not allowed to talk to anyone." Aelita took another step back, and Amaterasu took another forward.

The goddess smiled. "Then I won't talk, and neither will you." The goddess' brown eyes turned orange, and the hallway outside Aelita's bedroom melted away. Amaterasu became a mirage-like figure as the area Aelita had seen in her dream the day before replaced the hallway. Aelita's toes, still cold from the rain, pointed downwards, and she felt as if she was floating.

The Puck from her dream rushed to the royal family that had also appeared in Aelita's dream. He mentioned something, more frantic than in the dream, and instead of arguing, the king drew his sword. The queen picked up the child, and the area was surrounded by pale-skinned creatures with platinum-blonde hair and blood-shot blood-red eyes. Aelita recognized the creatures at once as vampires, but the day was still holding strong. Wolves appeared from the forest that had once seemed so welcoming, and Puck motioned for the family to run.

The king had yelled something to the elf, but the elf simply waved them off. Puck muttered something, and then blew on his fingers to create a cloud of pink dust, then chased after the royal family. They entered the castle Aelita had failed to see in her dream, and they were shooed by multiple workers—creature and human alike—down a spiral staircase. The queen asked Puck something, and the elf nodded, removing his hat. The queen tapped on his head, and the elf changed forms to a doll—the same doll Aelita remembered getting for Christmas after she had gotten sick.

The queen then directed her attention to a wall, and using what remained of her power, created a white spinning area of light, the stone walls of the castle melting into it. The king replaced his sword and motioned with his hands; after which the queen weakly covered the child's eyes. The queen had been tired, and the child could see through her fingers. The king had created three figures—one of a small vampire, one of the queen and one of the child. The queen's figure held a blood-bitten sword, and the vampire appeared to be bleeding.

The real child watched the vampire as the king and queen talked frantically, not realizing that the child could see what was happening. The vampire looked between the false child and the false queen, and then pounced on the child. It appeared as if the figures of the queen and child hadn't been created to react until the vampire touched them, because the false child didn't move until the vampire attacked it. The false child screamed as the vampire tore at her, splattering blood everywhere and tearing the child apart to the point where someone would have to pay very close attention to the false child's corpse to tell that it was the child. The vampire then did the same to the false queen, though the queen—being larger than the child—but up a better fight.

The real child's eyes blurred with tears. As the real queen and the king walked through the white spinning light, the child called out something—the only thing in the entire vision that Aelita could hear.

"_Mommy!_" The child had called out before vanishing without a trace.

The vampire finished, and it stood up tall. Its clothes were bloody, as were its hands, legs, hair and teeth. Pieces of flesh stuck out from under its nails, which it pulled out and chewed on as a child would do to a piece of gum and its wrapper. A woman resembling Amaterasu—Aelita realized that it was Amaterasu, for she looked similar and had taken over Yumi's body to speak to Aelita—rushed down the stairs with a man holding a curved blade. Seeing the vampire and the false corpses of the queen and child, Amaterasu ordered something at the man, who nodded and raised his blade.

The vampire turned just in time to see the man bring down his blade. The vampire was sliced in half.

When it was clear that the vampire was dead, Amaterasu looked to the queen and rubbed blood gently from her face. Her eyes turned to the child, and clearly mourning then, picked the child up and held its bloody corpse close to her. The man spoke slowly, and another child appeared, dressed in a white-and-red kimono. The new child looked similar to Amaterasu. Amaterasu placed the corpse down and kissed the new child, who asked a simple question that the goddess seemed to find impossible to answer. Amaterasu opened her arms to hold the new child, who rejected the offer and ran.

As the mirage began to fade, Aelita noticed that the man looked a bit like Jeremy. There were differences, of course, but the man had blond hair and blue eyes, similar facial features and clothing styles.

When the mirage faded, Amaterasu returned to appear solid again and Aelita hit the ground, her feet becoming flat as she did so. Aelita was completely shocked, her eyes watering and her throat tense from holding back the tears that didn't escape. Amaterasu seemed sympathetic. "It's hard, I know. It's not going to be any easier if you avoid it, Aelita."

Aelita could only barely hear her. She remembered, faintly, seeing a scene exactly like it when she was small. Peering through her mother's fingers, watching as she practically witnessed her own murder, her face being warm with blood that splattered, calling out for her mother, not remembering that her mother was holding her… it was a faint memory, but it clicked a light to the connection.

Aelita had been the child. Her parents were the king and queen. They'd been attacked by vampires who were unhappy about the family of humans ruling over magical creatures. Puck had been a close friend and guardian to Aelita during the three years of her life that she'd spent living in the castle…

She'd been a princess, and her people thought she had died.

"I've got to be going. Don't forget who you are…" Amaterasu said, her geisha-like features fading and were beginning to be replaced by those that Aelita assumed belonged to the girl she was speaking through. It was evident as she spoke more; for the fourteen-year-old girl's voice became more dominate with each word. "The vampires are in control of your kingdom. Maybe not today or any day soon, but one day, princess, you must go…" Amaterasu's features had faded completely, but her voice lingered a bit in the voice of the girl that Aelita assumed was Yumi. "…back."

Yumi seemed completely dazed and half-asleep, but she muttered sub-consciously, "Princess, you must go back…"

Aelita was picked up by air and flung back into her room as if she was a rag doll, and the door to her bedroom shut as Yumi appeared to pass out and fall down the stairs that she'd climbed when Amaterasu had taken over her body. There was a click, and Aelita couldn't help it anymore. The memory of who she'd been was too much to bear.

She broke down and cried.

* * *

The gang had been locked in Jeremy's bedroom for a while, but they'd finally managed to open it when Ulrich kicked the door. This was done just in time to see Yumi—no longer Amaterasu in Yumi's body but the real Yumi—about to fall. Upon seeing this, Ulrich called out, "_Yumi!_" He ran forward a caught her, and she opened her eyes a bit. He smiled, and Yumi opened her eyes so she could blink at him.

"Augh. Pain." Yumi managed, closing them again while raising her eyebrows. "What happened?"

"Amaterasu possessed you like some freaky mom-ghost." Ulrich explained, and Yumi looked to the others for their story.

Gus spoke before Jeremy or Lyna. "He's right," Gus considered that for a moment, and he added, "She also used your telekinesis to lock us in Jeremy's bedroom."

Yumi blinked. "I missed all that? Dang." She sat up, stretched her arms as if she'd simply been asleep and continued, "I feel like I've been asleep for fourteen thousand years…"

"Exaggerating a bit there, Yumi?" Jeremy asked, crossing his arms as Lyna giggled and Gus rolled his eyes.

Yumi shook her head. "Nope. It felt like fourteen thousand years." She shrugged, stood and added, "But I wonder why my mother didn't just ask me to pass on a message or something. What was so important that she had to do it herself?" The gang looked at each other, for they had been wondering the same thing. Yumi, embodied with more life than she had been, looked out the window. "Hey, look—the rain stopped."


	9. Chapter 9

_Chapter Nine: Promises_

"But, Yumi, this is _soooo _boring!" Lyna complained to the eldest girl of the group, who stood in a clearing, trying to accurately draw it on the paper she had in front of her. "Why does B.B want a stupid forest map, anyway? I already explained to him that he can't leave!" Lyna pointed out, and Yumi turned to stare at her. "What? I left out the Laurelei/Laurelet thing and how it was replaced by Aelita. I just told him about the weird debt thingy that Hermitage laid on him!"

It hadn't been the fact that Lyna had explained to Jeremy why he couldn't leave that bothered Yumi. It was the fact that Lyna had referred to Jeremy as 'B.B.'

Yumi turned back to what she was doing, and she looked around to see if she'd included everything. She added a few tree stumps and nodded to Gus. "Alright, scan the area."

Gus sat up and pulled out his wand, waved it around, and waited. Nothing happened. "Nope, this area is a negative transfer zone." Gus shrugged, and Yumi wrote N/T in the clearing. "How many does that make it, then?"

"We're down three to nothing, last time I counted." Ulrich announced, doodling in the dirt with his sword out of boredom.

"This totally sucks, because I'll bet that if we found a positive transfer zone that we could use a portal and find another gancanagh antidote." Lyna declared, collapsing onto the earth next to the stump Ulrich was lying on. Ulrich nodded to agree with her, and in boredom, Lyna decided to learn what happened when a golem was pushed off a tree stump by a fire elf.

As it turned out, Lyna thought that it was hilarious.

Ulrich, on the other hand, did not. The two thirteen-year-olds began to fight, though it only seemed to be rolling around with the occasional pause so one of them could try to punch the other but would be interrupted before they could, and then the rolling would begin again. Gus, who had not yet stored his wand again, pointed at them, and they froze.

Yumi looked, and she questioned Gus with, "Okay, so you got them to stop fighting. Now what do you propose we do?"

"My advice? Stick them at opposite sides of the clearing and put bears in between them." Gus said, and Yumi stared at him.

"That's not very nice, August!" Yumi protested, and Gus recoiled a bit at the use of his full name.

"I didn't say it was nice!" Gus shrugged, hoping to forget the embarrassment. "I just thought that it would get them to stop trying to kill each other." He pointed at them with his wand again, and they fighting resumed. "Guys, Yumi is done with this negative zone! Let's try to get another in before sunset!"

The two teens stopped the fighting and rushed back to the fourteen-year-olds. "So, which way, O Glorious and Honorable Mapmaker?" Ulrich joked, which was responded to by a slap on the side of the head by Yumi. "Oh, come on!"

"Northeast." Yumi said, eyeing Ulrich before looking at the other two to make sure they understood. Following the northeastern path, a clearing appeared again. It was void of tree stumps, and Yumi checked her map.

The other three clearings that the four had mapped all had tree stumps. The clearings were man-made, and they had all been negative zones.

The new clearing was natural. Perhaps… Yumi sketched its outline and the path leading to the previous clearing. "Gus…" Yumi signaled.

Gus was surprised that Yumi had finished so soon. He waved his wand, and Yumi closed her eyes.

* * *

Elsewhere, Jeremy stood barefoot at Hermitage's gate. He'd understood what his sister had told him, but he had a thing with testing his limits—Lyna's also told him that, but unlike the explanation of being bound to Hermitage, Lyna had told him he was a limit tester thousands of times before Jeremy lost count—and Jeremy was determined to find out how far his bondage would allow him to go.

He reached for the gate, and he was electrically shocked before he reached it. He held his hand up higher, and reached out again. The electric shock came again, and as Jeremy looked at the area where he'd been shocked the second time, he could see that everything took on a pinkish and hazy tint.

Jeremy realized that the pink field of energy was not what kept him inside. But he'd watched his friends leave from the very spot that he still stood on. It had not stopped them from leaving.

There was something else that kept him in.

* * *

"Negative," Gus sighed.

"What?" Yumi was shocked. "I was so sure…"

"There's no shame in being wrong, Yumes." Ulrich comforted her.

"I… but… positive… natural…" Yumi stuttered, shocked.

Ulrich patted her back, and Gus rubbed her head. "You're just babbling now." Gus pointed out.

Yumi blinked, and she smiled at Gus. "Yeah, I am, aren't I? Let's go," Yumi marched forward, and paused to shouted, "Lyna, are you coming?" When the demigoddess turned, she found that Lyna had fallen asleep. She rolled her eyes. Gus walked past Yumi to the sleeping elf and picked her up. The wizard walked past Yumi and Ulrich without another word, and the others followed him slowly as the sun turned the sky the deep orange color it always did at the time of night it was.

Ulrich looked out to it. He'd always enjoyed watching the sun set, though he had told no one else that fact.

The sunset gave him a feeling a promise.


	10. Chapter 10

_Chapter Ten: Aelita Anonymous_

The sky had turned darker, and the stars began to twinkle in the pastoral twilight. The gang—besides Jeremy—walked up to the gate. When Yumi went to open it, Gus put Lyna's feet on the ground and shook her shoulder a bit to try and wake her. "Lyna? Wake up; we're back now." He whispered.

Lyna rubbed one of her eyes, and she suddenly seemed so awake because she said, "Was the last one positive?" She'd woken up so quickly. The others would probably have been jealous had they not grown used to Lyna awakening in such a way.

"Nope, it was about as negative as the others." Ulrich complained, and he flinched, expecting a smack from Yumi, but there wasn't one.

Lyna stuck out her tongue with an appropriate sound effect. "Anyway, when I was asleep, I had this conversation with myself, and I told myself that we need to find out more about Aelita."

"Why? Anthea told us it just meant that Jeremy couldn't leave the grounds of Hermitage until he pays off his debt." Yumi asked as they walked up the path.

"Well, the way I see it," Lyna skipped up to Yumi. "Is that Aelita is a spell that keeps Jeremy in bondage. We find a way to break the spell, and we have the ultimate sneak attack."

"I see what you're getting at," Ulrich's eyes widened, and he smiled. "Laurelei must've told Xana that Jeremy was dead. We attack his headquarters with him, and no one will see it coming."

"Less resistance," Gus agreed.

"Right," Lyna nodded, and she opened the door widely as she entered Hermitage. "Besides, Aelita is what's keeping Jeremy here in the first place, right?"

"What?" Jeremy asked, and it was then Lyna noticed her brother was sitting on the stairs with his laptop on his knees. Lyna flushed, and she laughed nervously, looking to the others for support.

The hall was silent as Jeremy waited for one of his friends to explain to him what was going on. Lyna shook her head and muttered, "Never mind."

Jeremy eyed them, and he began to ask a question he already knew the answer to. "You all remember when we first decided to go underground with the Xanadu, right?" The others looked at him with a glazed look in their eyes. The Xanadu Days were not something they talked about often. "Well, remember the presentation about Xanadu's mission? And how the founder wanted to find the Human King Franz?"

Taking positions around Jeremy and his laptop, the others stared at him blankly. Not only did they not want to talk about the Xanadu Days, they also had absolutely no idea what Jeremy was talking about. "Aw, come on, you guys! You remember! You were _there!_"

"Obviously not," Yumi sighed.

"It had the story about how vampires killed Franz's wife and daughter!" The elf boy tried to jog the memories of his friends. Sighing, he continued, "Amaterasu confirmed the deaths of the Human Queen and Princess. I was just thinking…" He paused to look at his feet. "…what if they hadn't died?"

The mentioning of Amaterasu made Yumi listen closer, which flipped on a light in Yumi's head. "Oh! Right, right, right! The others fell asleep during that, and I only paid attention to the story behind Amaterasu confirming some deaths…" Yumi shrugged as the others tried to remember which meeting was about King Franz. "But that was over fourteen thousand years ago. If they didn't die then, they would be dead now, anyway."

"I don't think that it's that simple," Jeremy ignored the others as they continued to ponder. "You want to know why?"

Yumi rolled her eyes. "I'm still here, aren't I?"

"Waldo changed his name to Waldo from Franz, and his wife's name is Anthea, which was also the name of the queen who 'died.'"

"Coincidence."

"Well, you know how you were talking about Aelita a few minutes ago?"

"What about it?"

"That was the princess' name."

"You think that the princess' spirit lives here in Hermitage."

"No, I think the princess lives here."

"Don't be stupid, Jeremy. When we were talking about Aelita, we were talking about a word that Hermitage put on your forehead to keep you from leaving until you pay off your debt." Yumi crossed her arms. "And it's all well and good that Waldo and Anthea have or used to have the names of the Human King and Queen, but you've still left out an important factor."

"Oh, yeah?" Jeremy asked. "And what's that?"

"The Schaffers don't have a daughter."

Jeremy laughed. "That, Yumi," He smiled. "Is where you're wrong."

Yumi blushed from anger. "Do I look like I was born yesterday, Belpois? I've yet to see a three-year-old girl running around this place, dead or alive!" Yumi pointed at Jeremy as she continued. "And you want to know why?" She threw her hands up into the air. "Because there isn't one!"

"She's locked up and sick," Jeremy explained.

The moment was too good for Lyna to resist. "More like _knocked_ up and sick." She whispered with a smile and a giggle, which caused Ulrich and Gus to stifle laughs. Jeremy turned and gave all three a death glare, which shut them up. It didn't, however, stop them from laughing on the inside.

"Not to mention a _**total**_ lamb…" Jeremy added, emphasizing 'total' in the hope that it would tip off his sister, and continued, "…do you see the room at the top of the stairs?"

"Who can't, dude, it isn't like there's a _door_ there or anything." Ulrich responded sarcastically.

Jeremy rolled his eyes. "She's behind that. This probably goes without saying, but…" The elf looked at the others, and they looked at him. "…her name's Aelita."

Caught up in the conversation at that point, Gus asked, "So you're pretty sure that this is the royal family?" Jeremy nodded. "What makes you that sure?"

"I'm glad you asked!" Jeremy jumped up and went into his room, returning a few moments later with the book every new member received when they joined the Xanadu. When the gang left, they'd burned most of the books, but apparently, Jeremy kept his. He flipped through the pages and found a portrait of the family. The caption beneath it read: _the proud and strong Franz, the beautiful and commanding Anthea and their daughter, the young and promising Aelita. _"This was painted a few days before the vampires attacked, so it seems. Franz and Anthea even look like the royal family, and the Aelita behind that door looks like an older version of the princess, of which I mean, she looks thirteen… does that answer your question?"

Gus shrugged. "They died over fourteen thousand years ago. The only people who can live that long are gods. These guys are human."

"Yumi, you have faint memories of living with Amaterasu, right?"

"Yeah, I sometimes was with her in the heavens and other times we were in this huge castle." Yumi nodded.

Jeremy smirked, flipped the pages and asked, "When was the last time you went?"

"Ten years ago, I suppose."

"Amaterasu says that after the queen and princess died, she could never bring her half-human daughter to the world of creatures ever again. The only daughter she has that is half-human is you, Yumi." Jeremy's triumphant expression faded quickly. "Fourteen thousand years. No wonder she was so thrilled to see you."

Yumi looked up to Jeremy, and then to the others. "You're saying I was there, too? Dude… not cool."

"After that, though, you remained on Earth and grew up around humans, Yumi. You thought it was ten years, while creatures experienced fourteen thousand."

Ulrich interrupted. "There's a time gap, isn't there? Between the creature world and Earth."

"Yeah. I haven't figured it out, yet, though." Jeremy nodded.

"So, what you're saying is…" Lyna said, "…is that the royal family is here on Earth, _alive_, and we're sitting in their house."

"That's what I heard." Gus agreed.

The gang fell silent. "Why wouldn't they go back…?" Lyna voiced the thoughts of all five of them, and no one had the answer. "Are you positive that it's them?"

Jeremy nodded. He looked to Yumi and asked for the map. "It's why I wanted the map. If they got out of the creature world, they got to Earth somehow, and they probably didn't go far."

"We didn't find any positive transfer zones." Ulrich warned. Jeremy groaned. "Trust me, dude, I feel the same way."

"Okay, so the forest turned up empty." Gus began, and he added, "If they were going to flee to Earth—which they did, mind you—then there must have been a positive transfer zone in the room where the corpses of Anthea and Aelita were found. Where else might one hide a transfer zone?"

There was another silence.

"Waldo's office had a high magical signatures coming from the vials. Could that be hiding the transfer zone?" Lyna asked.

"Doubt it. The magical signature from that area would probably overpower the vials. It would take a lot more than what is in there to cover it up." Gus knocked Lyna's idea down. "Do you think Aelita might remember?"

"She didn't say anything about her life as a princess when I talked to her. I'm pretty sure she can't remember much of anything about the creature world." Jeremy shrugged.

Yumi crossed her legs. "Maybe the creature world's disappeared."

"_**What?**_" Was the gang's response. They couldn't believe that an entire world could go missing without someone noticing.

"Think about it." Yumi begged. "There were no transfer zones in the forest, and there probably aren't any in Hermitage. My mother possessed me the other day. I've never even talked to her in person, and a possession has to be done that way." Yumi looked to each of her friends. "There was not a single animal in the forest, nor was there a creature. We haven't seen creatures from the creature world since we arrived. And it all seemingly happened recently."

Ulrich nodded in agreement. "Communication can't be cut off between two worlds so quickly, remember? But we can't communicate with a world…" Ulrich's eyes intensified. "…that isn't there."

"Not to mention how quickly it happened. What felt like maybe a day for us could have been a year for them." Lyna agreed.

"Can you hack into the database of the Xanadu Clan and find out how many new members have joined up recently?" Yumi asked Jeremy. "It'll also help us find out what we're going to be facing here pretty soon."

Jeremy smirked, cracked his fingers, and typed rapidly on his laptop. "With pleasure." He paused suddenly, and he added, "Waldo's going to be home early tonight. You guys had better leave soon if you don't want to get in trouble. I'll call you if I find out anything new."

"'Kay. Come on; let's leave boy genius over here to his dirty work." Yumi said, standing up. Gus and Ulrich followed her, and Gus turned around when Lyna didn't. Jeremy stood and went into his bedroom.

"You coming?" Gus asked.

"Naw, I'll catch up with you guys later." Lyna shrugged. "I'm going to help Jeremy for a bit."

"Alright. See you later." The wizard waved as he left, and Lyna pretended to be headed for Jeremy's room. When Gus closed the door, she rushed up the stairs and closed her eyes at the top. Her body burst into flames, which she made sure cooled before passing through the cracks of the door Jeremy had said belonged to Aelita.

She returned to her original form when she was positive all of her had made it through the cracks. A girl sat on a bed, and Lyna could see she looked like Anthea and an older version of the princess, like Jeremy said. "Wassup girlfriend?" Lyna greeted loudly before plopping down next to her on the bed. The girl—Aelita—hadn't heard Lyna come in, and she was shocked at the sudden noise and motion. "I hear you've met my brother."

"I, uh, yes, and he was right." Aelita raised one eyebrow. "And you are…"

"Karolyna Dakota Kiovote, but you can call me Lyna."

"I'm Aelita."

"I know! You were the topic of our last conversation! Well, you and your parents and who you are and where you come from and why we can't get back there…"

"Back to where?"

"The world of creatures!"

Aelita was silent. "Lyoko?"

"Is it really called that? I never knew." Lyna shrugged.

"I'm not sure. I think so."

"I've never been there. Doesn't ring a bell."

"I've been there," Aelita sighed.

Lyna felt a twinge of sympathy. "Dude. I know the feeling."

"Why can't you get back, or, why can't I get back?"

"We aren't sure just yet. Our theory is that it's impossible."

"_**What?**__ Why?_"

"Well, we think it might have disappeared."

"No," Aelita muttered. "No, no, no, no… Amaterasu told me I had to go back… I'd finally decided that I would go back…"

"It's alright, kid, no worries!" Lyna couldn't help but feel like she was lying, though she wasn't. "My brother's a genius. He'll get it back, I _totally _promise!"

Aelita looked at Lyna. She'd never been promised anything, and Lyna had promised her the return of an entire world. She examined Lyna closer, and there was something that told Aelita that Lyna wasn't joking. "Promise?" Aelita asked, questioning the elf girl.

"_Totally._" Lyna reassured her. Looking around, she added, "Nice digs."

"Uh, thanks, I guess?" Aelita thanked her, and she asked, "You're not going to ask about Amaterasu?"

"Why?"

"Because I spoke with her."

"I believe you! Besides, whatever was discussed between you and Amaterasu… well, that's your business unless _you_ bring it up. Don't wait for someone else to."

Aelita pondered that. "That's good advice."

Lyna smiled. "Isn't it, though?"


	11. Chapter 11

_Chapter Eleven: Reality Check_

Jeremy had called Yumi around four o'clock the next morning, and she, Ulrich and Gus had rushed over. Jeremy waited for them, leaning against his desk as they came in. "Where's Lyna?" He asked after the three had entered and closed the door.

"She said she was going to help you out for a while last night." Gus shrugged.

"Well, she was never here." Jeremy pushed that aside and motioned them to gather around his laptop. "We'll have to start without her. So, I did like you asked, Yumi, and there have been increasing numbers of new members in the Xanadu Clan."

"How much are we talking here?" Yumi asked, leaning over Jeremy's shoulder to look at the screen.

"Thousands." Jeremy replied, "But that's not the worst part. Humans have joined them, too."

"Seriously?" Yumi was shocked. "Those poor bastards." Yumi flushed and covered her mouth with her hand. She shook it off as Jeremy continued.

"The base taking in the most is in New York, obviously, but there's also one nearby that has increased in population, too, and the bases give off huge magical signatures." Jeremy brought up a map of the area surrounding Hermitage. The maps showed a small light over an area a few miles away. As the picture changed, the area of light grew at least ten times larger, and the map changed again to the point where it created a donut-like shape around Hermitage. "They can be sensed from miles away, so this area is bound to get larger as magical creatures go to find this."

Gus whistled, and Ulrich asked, "You think these magical creatures are coming from the world of creatures?"

"Not sure. It's hard to say right now. I can't pull up the membership applications for the creatures." Jeremy admitted.

"Why not?" Yumi pestered. "You've got mad hacking skills!"

Jeremy shoved her gently. "Flattery will get you no where!" He said sarcastically. "They're in a restricted file that can only be accessed by Xana. I did manage to download a few of them, but then I was turned out by a virus threat." He clicked around for a few seconds and six applications showed up. There were only six, and they seemed to be in their early teens, like the gang. "Here's where these applications get tricky."

Jeremy reached into one of his drawers and pulled out six two-page packets of papers. "These applications match the missing person's reports for six students at Kadic Academy, and the application stats match the profiles of the missing students."

Gus took the packets. On the front, he saw a boy with pale skin and black hair. Flipping the page, similar pictures showed up, but the boy had skin turned a bluish color and his eyebrows were much more severe and white. The names, ages, genders and other miscellaneous information were, in fact, exactly the same. "They can't be the same. One's human, the other's a creature!" Ulrich pointed out.

"This brings me to my next point of discussion…" Jeremy typed rapidly on his keyboard. "…Xana has been investing a lost of time and money into researching gene mutations. Since everything else matches, my guess is that the students were Xana's guinea pigs."

"That's awful!" Yumi cried out, taking the packet Gus had been holding. "So this is William Dunbar, eh? Who's after him, Gus?"

"Um… Elisabeth Delmas, Emilie LeDuc, Hervé Pichon, Taelia Stones, Odd Della-Robbia…" Gus listed. "These students barely have anything in common. From what I see here, the only thing shared between them is the fact they go to Kadic."

Ulrich took some of the packets and flipped through them. "Anything else, Einstein?"

"Yes, and its totally bizarre but it may help us figure out Xana's motive." Jeremy nodded, shivering a bit. "You all remember that Xana was Xanadu's heir, right?"

Yumi shrugged. "Yeah, who wouldn't? All of his meetings started with 'my father wanted this' or 'my father wanted that.'"

"Xanadu kept a diary, and I managed to find a digital copy of it. There are entries about everything from his family to the clan, once he started it. He talks about how his wife was human and how he was a creature, but he also talks about when Franz fell in love with Anthea at one point." Jeremy spun around to face the three, his ankle resting on his knee. The others sat down across from him on his bed.

Yumi placed her hands softly on her heart in a mocking way. "How romantic!" She commented sarcastically.

"Shut up! I want to hear this." Ulrich shushed Yumi.

Jeremy rolled his eyes. "He talks about how Franz was both human and creature, but because of the creature in his blood, he and Anthea couldn't be together." There was a surprised look on each of the faces of his friends. "Franz performed this sort of ritual where a creature with any trace of human in its blood pushes the creature part of them away to live the remainder of their life as a human. Something had gone wrong, and the creature part of Franz tried to kill him.

"Franz hadn't been alone at the time, thankfully, and the creature was subdued. Franz went on to marry Anthea, so on and so forth." Jeremy seemed to have completed the history lesson, but he hadn't finished talking. "Franz had given the creature a name even after it had tried to kill him. He was questioned about that later, and he said that it was like how small children gave their toys names. The name Franz chose was Xana, in honor of his father, who had given him permission to perform the ritual in the first place."

"So, is Xana Franz's son or his brother?" Gus asked after a few minutes of pondering that.

"Xana _is_ Franz, but the creature part of him. All that remained of Franz was the human part of him." Yumi explained.

"When the royal family was attacked years later, Xanadu created his clan to find his son. He'd hoped to find Franz before he died, but when he didn't; Xana was left with the clan because he was, technically, Xanadu's son." Jeremy further explained. "Xana could hate humans because they could take him out of power. That may not be the reason, but it is a possibility."

"Blocking off the way to the world of creatures would also stop Franz from returning and knocking the vampires out of the power they wrongly acquired." Yumi agreed. "I wouldn't bet money on it, but my thoughts go with that Xana and the vampires are working together. If the world is still there, that is. Did find out anything about that?"

"I still can't be sure. There hasn't been any word of it recently." Jeremy sighed.

"Well, we made some progress." Yumi smiled. There was some squeaking, and Jeremy's ferret used Yumi's leg to run up onto Jeremy's bed. "Oh. There you are, Mort. Where have you been?"

Lyna, Anthea and Waldo watched as the gang filed out of Jeremy's bedroom. Lyna motioned for them to enter the kitchen. "I understand you've discovered our secret." Waldo declared as the others gathered around the table in the kitchen. "I don't know how you feel about it, but you must understand—this is for the best. For everyone."

There was a silence. Waldo continued. "I also understand that you've been trying to locate Lyoko, and your current theory is that it's vanished. The creatures in this area are in such large numbers that they've blocked the transfer zones. They won't move easily, especially if the alternative is returning to Lyoko and living in fear, and for some, that is the alternative."

"You found the profiles of the missing students, right?" Lyna asked. Jeremy nodded. "They were kidnapped by the creatures, but their whereabouts are unknown. We'll have to wait until an opportunity arises that we can get to the inside of the clan to try and find them."

"There is a rumor around that Waldo is the next target for creatures. You've got to stop it, or at least prolong it as long as possible." Anthea rubbed her husband's shoulders. "Since Yumi, Gus and Ulrich can pull off human appearances; you three will go to Kadic each day and pretend to be students. Collect rumors while you're there. See what others know about what's going on." Anthea paused while the three she'd referred to nodded. "Jeremy and Lyna will stay here in case the creatures attack Hermitage."

"Besides," Lyna added, "They caught me talking to Aelita straight-up, so Jeremy and I are both on friendly terms with her. It's not like Jeremy could leave anyway." She shrugged.

The others looked to each other. "So, this is it, huh? That's how it's all going to go down." Ulrich asked, answered by a mutual nod from Anthea, Waldo and Lyna. "I just hope to God that it works."


	12. Chapter 12

_Chapter Twelve: Survive_

"Jeremy, what's it like to be poisoned by a gancanagh?" Aelita asked with the best intentions. The elf blushed and looked at her, and though she seemed to realize that he was embarrassed, she didn't have any hint on her face that said Jeremy had a choice in answering.

Lyna, who was sitting next to Aelita on the floor, smiled and said, "Yes, Jeremy, tell her what it's like to be poisoned by a gancanagh." Lyna seemed both smug and honestly curious herself.

"Uh…" Jeremy stammered. "That was unexpected." He stated blankly, and then he looked between Aelita and Lyna. He muttered what the answer, and the girls leaned forward to hear him. "It's difficult to explain because I couldn't realize it until it was way too late… I remember that I only felt like myself around her, and when she left, I could only think about her… and it didn't matter how many burns she left, I still couldn't bear to leave.

"When she was away for longer than fifteen minutes, sometimes less, I'd become stressed and confused and violent…" He looked apologetically to Lyna, and Lyna raised her hand to her cheek. He remembered his sister offering to help ease the pain of his burns after he'd complained about the pain, and he'd tried to keep her away from him. When she continued to try and help, Jeremy had smacked her across her face. He felt awful about it as he thought back on it, but he'd not thought twice about it at the time. "…and I did a lot of things I regret."

Aelita thought about what he'd said, and she looked at the pain in his eyes. She wasn't sure if she wanted to hear more.

"But for as it felt, it really depended on if she was there or not." Jeremy spoke up a bit. "It felt great when she was there, but otherwise it was like what I'd imagine being addicted to meth in a steel room would feel like. It felt like bugs were crawling under my skin, and I was either hot or cold. I'd pound my head on a wall, and I guess I was thinking that it would knock the bugs out or something. If it wasn't her approaching me, they were a threat. I would tremble a lot, and I felt like I was going insane." He looked at the girls before adding, "And I felt like I was dying."

Forcing a smile, Lyna joked, "You almost did there, dude." She tried to laugh, but there was a lump in her throat. "But she's gone now, and she won't hurt us again."

Aelita shuddered, and she remembered the burns she'd seen on Jeremy when she first saw him. She concluded that they were the burns he was talking about. Aelita wished she could help him. Lyna nudged Aelita with her elbow and said, "Y'know, nowadays I can't listen to '_I Will Survive_' without thinking of my brother." She stood up suddenly and started singing the lyrics. Lyna accompanied her singing with a dance, and the others laughed in spite of themselves.

Hearing the door open downstairs, Jeremy looked out the keyhole to the front door. "Uh, Lyna? You know how you just said she was gone?" He asked his sister.

"What?" She asked, rushing to the door to look out. "That _bitch!_"

"What's going on?" Aelita asked as the elves argued over each other. They pulled open the door and rushed out, ignoring Aelita. She hopped out of bed and wobbled before she ran to the open doorway. "_Someone tell me what is going on!_" She screamed.

Lyna stared down the stairs, her hands ablaze. Jeremy, obviously not as preoccupied as Lyna, turned and said. "The gancanagh's here." Aelita blinked and stood behind them to look at the gancanagh.

A woman with dark hair stood in the hallway. "Karolyna," She greeted Lyna, who narrowed her eyes. She took a step forward before greeting, "Jeremy." Jeremy walked down the stairs to face the woman.

"Laurelei." Was all he said, and Lyna took a step forward. Jeremy held his hand back and the air in front of the stairs froze into an ice wall. Lyna pounded on it furiously.

Laurelei walked towards him, and he produced a knife from seemingly out of nowhere. Laurelei hadn't seen where Jeremy had gotten it from, and Lyna was too busy pounding on the ice wall to notice, but Aelita had seen him pull it from his sleeve. She couldn't help but wonder when he'd gotten it. He hadn't been wearing it when she first saw him, nor did she remember any imprint of a knife through his sleeve. "Where'd he get that knife?" Aelita nudged Lyna, and Lyna looked at it.

"Hey…" She finally muttered before her hand flew to her side. "That's my knife! How'd he get my knife?" She asked, and then looked to Aelita, who shrugged.

"Alright, alright, I catch your drift." Laurelei admitted, raising her hands in a universal sign for slow down. "I just came here to see if you were dead. Which you're not."

Jeremy shrugged. "It'll take more than that to kill me."

"A fact of which _is_ surprising," Laurelei admitted before showing her gun and pointing it at him. "However irrelevant."

"A gun," Jeremy noted unenthusiastically. "Didn't we already try a gun?"

"Did we?" She asked, lowering it in shock. "To the head?"

"No, but you're a lousy shot!" Jeremy turned as the bullet came. "Oh! You almost got me there!" He complimented, which was returned by another bullet that managed to lodge itself in his arm. "Y'know, your aim has gotten considerably better. Have you been practicing?" Jeremy held his wounded arm with the other, but otherwise, he seemed unfazed.

Lyna pounded on the glass furiously. Aelita noticed that she didn't bother to melt the ice, but she remained silent.

Laurelei put her gun back in its holster around her hip. "Had enough?" She asked maliciously. She walked closer to him, but before she could do anything else, Jeremy removed his hand from his wound and flicked blood in her eyes. He then kicked her in the gut, causing her to recoil. In her weakened state, Jeremy took her gun.

"Why'd he throw blood in her eyes?" Lyna asked rhetorically, "He could've blinded her earlier with water or something."

"Have you ever had blood in your eyes?" Aelita asked in a tone that almost suggested she was offended.

"No," She shrugged and looked to the pink-haired girl.

"Well, I have," Aelita pointed out, which caused a bit of shock in the elf girl. "First of all, it isn't pleasant. Second, blood is harder to blink out than water."

When Laurelei straightened, Jeremy had the gun pointed at her. "Oh, congrats." Laurelei congratulated him sarcastically. "You've got my gun. It's not like you're going to use it."

"Want to make a bet?" Jeremy warned.

"You don't gamble," Laurelei pointed out. "And I know for a fact that even if we made a bet, you still wouldn't pull the trigger." Laurelei pulled the hair tie out from her hair and her dark locks fell and rested around her shoulders.

Aelita could see through the ice that the gancanagh was beautiful. In an evil, bloodthirsty, and all-around vulgar way, but nevertheless, beautiful. She understood why Jeremy had fallen in love with her. She found herself insanely jealous, which shocked her. Unlike when she'd seen kids her age in the forest, Aelita couldn't banish the jealousy she felt towards Laurelei.

Jeremy shuddered for a moment, memories from a time passed flooding into his head. "Put the gun down, sweetheart." Laurelei cooed, and Jeremy gruffly did as she said. Darkness surrounded her hands like an aura, and Jeremy seemed surprised. Lyna, too, was not expecting it. "Oh, this?" Laurelei said innocently. "I got an upgrade. It's beautiful, isn't it? But not only that, it's deadly."

Laurelei launched the darkness, and Jeremy ducked. "Can't we just settle this like two normal people?" Jeremy asked hopefully. "Violence isn't the answer." Another round of darkness was launched in his direction, one of which skimmed him and the other hit his already wounded arm. "Guess not, then." Jeremy sighed as he pulled water from the air.

"Awesome!" Lyna cheered, shocking Aelita. "We get to see Jeremy kick gancanagh ass!" She looked to Aelita and explained, "He doesn't like to fight often, but he's really good at it. My brother actually has the most control over his power than anyone else in our ragtag group. That's why the rest of us have weapons."

Jeremy froze the water into daggers and grabbed them. He threw them at Laurelei loosely, and they missed completely. Laurelei mocked him loudly, and the daggers turned around and tore into the outermost layer of her skin before the heat of her skin made them melt. After sidestepping a bit, Laurelei said, "Well, there you have it. I always knew you'd stab me in the back. I thought we were friends." The last part had been said sarcastically.

"A true friend stabs you in the front." Jeremy quoted Oscar Wilde. Laurelei rolled her eyes and held out one hand with the dark aura surrounding it. Instead of firing the darkness at Jeremy, darkness surrounded her gun and when the darkness disintegrated, the gun was gone. The darkness reappeared around her hand and disappeared once more, having been replaced by the gun. Now angry, Jeremy shouted, "Y'know what? _Screw you!_"

There were several gunshots, and Lyna pounded on the ice. "Ugh! Stupid wall of ice!" She said. "Mother fucking bitch is going to fucking kill my brother…"

Aelita tapped the elf girl's shoulder and asked, "Lyna, why don't you just melt the ice?" Lyna blinked and face-palmed herself. "What was that?" Aelita was referring to Lyna's face-palm.

"It's a face-palm—sometimes, words just can't explain how dumb something I've done really was. This is one of those times." Lyna explained, lit her hands and put her hands on the ice. After a few seconds, she noted, "Damn, this is some thick ice."

Meanwhile, Jeremy had frozen Laurelei's feet, and Laurelei—after a few seconds of struggling—broke free and noticed Jeremy had disappeared. She looked around, and then up. As she searched the ceiling—Jeremy was very good at fighting tactics and was capable of some strange things—someone struck her in the center of her back. Turning, she found Jeremy standing there, but he was becoming run down. She ran forward and kicked his feet from out from under him, and then grabbed his wrist. As the elf boy struggled to break free of her grasp, Laurelei called the poison from her lips, and it slowly started to seep to the rest of her body. Jeremy took his free hand, grabbed Lyna's knife and sliced at Laurelei's still-pale hand.

The ice wall had melted and Lyna rushed down the stairs. Fire was launched at Laurelei, who noticed Aelita still standing at the top of the stairs. Darkness surrounded her hand and she pointed her hand at Aelita. Darkness surrounded Aelita's feet, and she struggled to get rid of it. Soon, it had consumed Aelita and the next thing she knew, she was Laurelei's captive. Laurelei held the gun to Aelita's head, and she tried to slink away from it. "Now, who's this?"

"Let her go!" Jeremy ordered.

"Not until you tell me why you tricked me into thinking you were dead!" Laurelei forced terms down his throat.

"What?" Jeremy asked honestly.

"Don't 'what' me!" Laurelei shouted. "There's a headstone outside with _your_ name on it!"

"I honestly have _no _clue what you're talking about." He said.

Lyna stepped forward. "It was my idea. I didn't tell Jeremy. And the reason why I wanted to trick you was so that way this didn't happen!" Lyna motioned around. "You can't tell me that you wouldn't have done this had you learned that Jeremy was alive sooner!"

Laurelei and Lyna stared at each other sternly, but the gancanagh eventually dropped the thirteen-year-old girl and spun around to leave. She opened the door and turned around to warn them, "Be prepared for us. We're going to come back and our mission will succeed." She slammed the door.

"Whoot! We win!" Lyna cried triumphantly. She looked to Jeremy, who seemed woozy, and he was severely injured from attacks that must have occurred when the girls hadn't been watching. He was bleeding, and he couldn't stand straight. His legs collapsed from out from under him. "Jeremy? _Jeremy!_"

* * *

Lyna stood outside looking at the headstone. She was silent, her hands tucked into her red jacket. The days were getting colder. Her face had a melancholy expression. "You idiot," Lyna muttered, pulling her hands from her pockets. She blew on them and rubbed them together.

The back door opened, and Jeremy walked out and passed his sister a cup of hot chocolate. "So, this is my false grave?" He asked, standing next to her.

"Yep." Lyna nodded.

"Is it really October?" Jeremy asked suddenly, reviewing the dates.

Lyna looked at him with a confused look on her face. "Duh! What month did you think it was?"

"I thought it was January." Jeremy's voice sounded embarrassed.

"Say _what?_" Lyna picked up a fallen yellow leaf and held it up to his face.

"Look, I fell asleep in January! The part of my dream that I remember is only a few minutes long!" He crossed him arms in defense.

"_This is not a January leaf!_" She shouted, like it was general knowledge.

"I know!" Jeremy said in a half-sigh half-shout. After a few minutes of silence, Jeremy said, "That's not the right year."

"What?"

"You put the wrong year on this! I was born in 1995*!"

Lyna looked at it and blinked. "Shut up." She said, crossing her arms in a temperamental fashion. "It fooled Laurelei, didn't it?"

"I'm just saying, I'm going to have to hurt you if you make the same mistake on my real headstone."

"Oh, Jeremy, you can bet I won't, besides, I'm just a cute little thing…" Lyna shrugged. "So don't cross me now or I will!"

Lyna took another sip of her cocoa and picked up the headstone. "This isn't even real granite." She shrugged as the siblings went inside.

*I can't believe none of you noticed that.

A/N: Updated. I realized I'd forgotten to mention that Jeremy didn't realize a lot of time had passed. Not to mention I had to point out that _NONE OF YOU NOTICED THE YEAR WAS WRONG! _Or at least you didn't say anything if you did.


	13. Chapter 13

_Chapter Thirteen: Eye of the Storm_

As the three human-like members of the gang entered Hermitage after their day at the school where Waldo worked, they saw Lyna in the kitchen reading the paper. It was very strange to see Lyna doing such a thing—Lyna had no patience for the small-printed words—and the most they could do was sit down next to her and wait for something to be said. "I'm looking at the pictures." Lyna said in a frustrated, apparently noticing their confusion. "They've put up photos of creatures in the forest. Well, I know they're creatures. Stupid editors can't tell what they are."

There was a group 'oh,' and Lyna rolled her eyes. "How was school?" She asked in a mocking version of the tone TV shows tell the actresses to use when asking their fake children the same question. There was a silence, and when Lyna peaked over her newspaper, all three of her friends had placed their heads on the table. "That bad?"

"No, school was fine." Yumi corrected her nervously. "It's just…" She paused. "We didn't find out anything about the students. Well, we didn't find out anything about any of the missing students except for Odd, Sissi, and sort of Taelia."

"Well, spill." Lyna ordered, folding up her newspaper.

"Odd's dated nearly every girl in the eighth grade besides Sissi," Ulrich pointed out in annoyance. "Sissi's got a head full of helium and Taelia's an orphan."

"How does that help us?" Yumi shouted rhetorically as she threw her hands up.

Gus looked around. Lyna noted that he'd removed his cloak and that his dark arms were strong. "Where's Jeremy?"

Lyna shrugged. "He stayed up until four in the morning and then got into a fist-fight with Laurelei. I told him to go lay down."

"Laurelei was here?" Ulrich asked as the others straightened their backs. "I thought she wouldn't come back because we fooled her into thinking Jeremy was dead!"

"I guess she found out somehow." Lyna shrugged again. "Speaking of which, we put the wrong date on the headstone."

"What?" Ulrich raised an eyebrow.

"That's what I said!" Lyna agreed. "He was born in 1995."

"That, uh," Gus muttered. "That sort of sucks."

"Meh." Yumi shrugged. "Fooled Laurelei, didn't it?" There were mutters of agreement and Yumi showed a small moment of triumph. "Anything else interesting happen?"

"Hm? Oh, yeah. Jeremy got shot." Lyna stirred her hot chocolate before sipping it. "Gross! This is lukewarm." She stood and poured it out into the sink. When she sat back down, she noticed the others staring at her in shock, and she noted, "I'm having a serious case of déjà vu."

"Did I just hear you say he got shot?" Yumi asked.

"Yep." Lyna nodded. "But don't worry. I took care of it. Besides, it wasn't really 'shot' more as it was 'a small sacrifice to be made for the chance to kick gancanagh ass.'" She was silent for a moment before adding, "Remind me to tell Jeremy later that he's out of practice."

"He's still alive, isn't he?" Ulrich asked, already knowing the answer.

"You bet."

"Then he's fine."

* * *

Jeremy had been told to lay down, which he had done, but the feeling of doing nothing had quickly gotten into his head. He sat up and opened his laptop. His fingers flew across the keyboard as he scanned the area around Hermitage. The area had grown considerably larger since the morning. Jeremy sighed, wondering when the attack would come. He closed the laptop and fell back.

He rubbed the medical tape Lyna had wrapped around his bullet wound. It stung like crazy, but Jeremy couldn't stop rubbing it. His thoughts wandered from his wound to Franz and Anthea, and how Franz had given up his creature side to become human. He suddenly thought of doing the same thing, and he sat up in shock at the thought. Jeremy had considered becoming human.

Why had he even thought about it? There was nothing to consider.

Jeremy fell back again as he thought of the condition Franz had met at that time. Franz had been half-human, and he'd managed to completely separate his human side and his creature side. Jeremy had no idea if he had human ancestors. And even if he did, they would probably be so distant that trying to separate his human and creature sides would kill him. He knew the risks and he couldn't put anyone through that.

Jeremy couldn't understand why he couldn't make the thoughts go away. Mort climbed up onto the elf's shoulders, and Jeremy scratched the ferret's head compulsively.

* * *

Lyna entered Aelita's bedroom. Aelita sat with her arms on the edges of her knees and her chin rested on what space remained on her knees. She gave the appearance of being incredibly pessimistic. Lyna held back the laugh she knew was coming. "What's with the face?"

"What face?" Aelita lied badly. "There's no face. This is my face."

"Sure. Whatever you say." Lyna shrugged, not wanting to push the conversation farther. "Anyway, what'd you think of Jeremy in fight?"

Aelita perked up immediately. "I thought he was great!"

Lyna laughed. "He used to be a lot better." She fell down onto Aelita's bed. "Me and Jeremy used to fight in this huge arena back in New York… we went undefeated for a long time… but then Laurelei started to drain all of his energy, and we stopped going." Lyna had taken on a somber expression that was unlike the intense emotions Aelita had come to expect from the elf girl. "When I did finally manage to convince him to come back and fight with me, we lost so badly…" The elf girl laughed in spite of herself.

"Lyna…" Aelita sighed sympathetically.

"No, no, it's fine. I don't want your pity." Lyna smiled. "It's not your fault, nor is it mine or Jeremy's. You and me both know who's to blame."

Aelita looked out the window, but she put her chin back on her knees again after a few seconds. "Laurelei." Aelita muttered with as much hate as any of the others in the gang would have said it with. Lyna looked back up to the pink-haired human girl, and she almost laughed at how fast Aelita had formed her opinion of the gancanagh.

"Oh, wow! That was fast!" She voiced her thoughts. "Why do you hate her?"

Aelita looked at Lyna sternly. "I need a reason?"

Lyna studied her face for a second. "Are you…" Lyna began, and she smirked. "…jealous?" She accused playfully.

"_What?_" Aelita shuddered defensively. "No, it's just that—you _saw_ what she did to him—and he's burned—she shot a _gun_ at him—she pointed a gun at _me_, for crying out loud!" Lyna's smile vanished as Aelita defended herself in vain.

"Aelita, let me tell you something." Lyna placed a light brown hand on Aelita's shoulder. "Laurelei is not the kind of person to be jealous of."

From downstairs, Ulrich called up to Lyna. She stood up and as she did so, Aelita added, "I'm not jealous of Laurelei."

"You shouldn't be." Lyna agreed, her face still somber.

As the elf girl approached the door, Aelita asked, "What's that mean?"

Lyna looked back to the human girl. "You're innocent, and you're awesome and nice." Lyna listed more traits on her fingers. "You're sweet, given the chance I'll bet you'd be faithful to your lover, you've got a great sense of humor so long as the joke is clean, and need I mention you're beautiful?" Lyna crossed her arms with a list of traits that Aelita assumed were characteristics that she possessed that Laurelei didn't. "Don't take that the wrong way."

"Lyna, I—" Aelita tried to say.

"In my opinion, if anyone should be jealous, Laurelei should be jealous of you." Lyna announced, and she opened the door. "I've got to go see what Ulrich wants. I'll talk to you soon."

Aelita blushed, and she considered what Lyna had said. Aelita shook her head, not believing what the elf girl had said, and she opened a book to help pass the time and drown the feeling.


	14. Chapter 14

_Chapter Fourteen: Curiosity and the Cat Boy_

Odd Della-Robbia woke up slowly in a room he did not recognize. The walls and floor were less of a gray color but more of the color gray would have turned if at any point it became sick. Besides the ugly color on the walls, there was one of those mini-bathrooms typical in prison cells and a metal cot of which the thirteen-year-old was laying on. Odd sat up and joked, "Hey, throw a few clothes around and this would look exactly like my bedroom!" He laughed for a moment about it, but his face became stern again. "Where am I, anyway?"

He scanned the room and he looked at his reflection in a mirror. His hair stood up into a point, like it always did, and out from his blond hair peaked purple cat ears. Odd screamed, throwing his hands to his cat ears like someone would if they were trying to make sure that they were really there. His hands and most of his forearms had been replaced by huge purple cat paws. Odd looked at them, his throat too scratchy to scream anymore, and he flicked his tail.

It was then that he realized he had a tail.

Odd held his tail with one of his paws. It, like his other newly discovered cat attachments, was purple, and it had stripes similar to those on his paws. Odd also learned there were bandages wrapped around his torso, though they were hidden by his everyday clothes. "What the hell?" Was all Odd could manage to say.

A man in a white coat held a clipboard, and Odd approached the bars of the door to talk to him. "Hey, where am I?" The cat boy asked, his three fingers wrapping around a bar.

"You…" the man began, "…are in an underground medical facility where you have just woken up after an experiment on your genes."

"A what now?" Odd asked, becoming frantic. "I'm doomed to be a cat boy forever, aren't I? They're going to think I'm the missing link!" Odd smirked when he realized that he had rhymed.

"Oh, no, I doubt that either of those will be true." The man marked down observations. The scritch of his pencil on the paper was ominous, though it was a sound Odd had heard practically everyday. "Your genes recovered surprisingly well to the G.M.S… the only one, I'm afraid…"

"I want to be human again…" Odd muttered, sitting down on his metal cot, which offered about as much comfort as standing. "I want to go home…"

"Okay, try launching an attack. Xana wants to see how your stamina is doing." The man ordered, tucking his hands and the clipboard behind his back.

"Attacking? What am I going to do with these big useless paws?" Odd asked, weighing his paws in his mind, which somehow triggered the launching of an arrow. "Cool!" The cat boy announced.

"Good, good, but save those for the battle field…" The man ordered, and then looked up. "That's typically all your kind can do, but Laurelei wanted us to try something else, too. Can you summon your claws*?"  
Odd looked to his small claws on the tips of his three fingers. The claws were black and looked an awful lot like Kiwi's claws. Odd would have been thrilled by that had Kiwi been a cat and not a dog. He concentrated a little bit—he hoped the man appreciated how much Odd was trying—and the claws grew longer. Odd smirked as they became almost as long as his fingers and resembled the claws of Wolverine. "Epic!"

"Good, good…" The man scratched down more observations and turned to leave.

"Wait!" Odd called out. "Aren't you going to let me out?"

"No. Laurelei wants you to stay in there until they call you out to start fighting." The man responded coolly as he left Odd alone in the dark.

* * *

A few hours later, Odd was pulled out of his cell by two bulky men. They had an inhuman green and blue tint in their faces. Odd knew, from experience, that humans generally came in a multitude of colors, but blue and green were generally not among them. Their temples stuck out and their eyes—bloodshot and cold—were deep-set. They wore matching old-school military uniforms, but new-age guns were strapped to their backs. "Oh, boy, am I glad to see you guys! I was thinking that I was going to die in there alone!"

"Nu-uh, not when Miz Laurelei'z got a big ol' plan for you." The blue man spoke slowly and in a tone that suggested he was about as stupid as he looked.

Odd might have been amused had he not been so terrified.

"Ev'ry time you open your mouth you become lez and lez attractive." The green man spoke in a similar tone with daggers in his voice.

"Um, excuse me, but I'd like to know where I'm being taken." Odd interrupted, and he hoped he might have stalled an argument that would be something that the cat boy did not want to be in the middle off—literally or figuratively.

"I bet you would." The green one shot, spitting in Odd's eye, causing him to wince from pain. The spit burned like a hot pepper, but Odd couldn't tell if had been accidental spit or spit with a purpose. The men dragged Odd somewhere despite his protests.

They finally stopped at a set of doors, their faces becoming still. The room became dark, and Odd couldn't tell which voice was which as they waited in the darkness. "Miz Laurelei not gonna like it if the cat boy diez. Oh, like anybody carez what Miz Laurelei doez! Hey, don't snip at me! I waz just trying to keep uz out of trouble. You can ztop trying and get ready to puzh!" The men argued.

The doors began to open, and when they were wide enough for Odd to fit through, the men pushed him. He hit the dust hard and looked around. The area around him reminded him of a bullfighting arena. Odd remembered thinking very highly of matadors when he was small, but as the fear-stricken cat boy stood, he wondered what the people in the seats would make him do.

They screamed and chanted, their faces hidden by the false lighting. The ceiling hung thousands of feet above Odd's head. Odd picked himself up off the dust, and the cheering got louder. Odd waited for some kind of sign of what he was supposed to do, and across the way, another door opened and a masked person walked inside the arena.

It was impossible to tell whether or not the person was a man. Their entire body was covered in a knight's armor except their feet, which were covered by sneakers as another fact to add to the confusion. The longer odd looked, the more he could see the armor was less of metal but more of vines spray-painted a silver color to give the effect of armor. The crowd shouted for the two in the arena to fight.

"Fight?" Odd questioned, turning around to look at the people above him. The cat boy turned to his opponent and said, "I don't want to fight, do you?" His question was answered as he saw the vine knight charging towards him. He dodged, and the knight's sword became stuck in the doors Odd had entered from. "Whoa! Careful with that! Someone could get seriously hurt."

"That's the point, you dipstick!" The knight called out, a voice-changer obviously inside their helmet. Odd sighed, and he watched as the knight pulled their sword from the door. "Fight me like a man!"

"I'm not a man, I'm a _cat_ man." Odd replied with a laugh, and his arm was grazed by a dagger. "Dude! Don't throw stuff when I'm not paying attention!" Odd held his right arm out and held it still with his left. He aimed at the knight, and shouted, "_Laser Arrow!_" The arrows fired from his paw and struck the knight's shoulder and knee.

"Laser Arrow? How pathetic," The knight shot, drawing their sword again. The small holes that had been left in the knight's armor were covered as the vines snaked around and covered them. "You can activate that attack with telepathy, stupid."

"Hey, I can have a catchphrase if I _want_ a catchphrase!" Odd defended, dodging another dagger. The knight lunged, and Odd spun to avoid it. "Besides, I don't see you landing any attacks!"

"If you'd stand still instead of dancing around like a fucking ballerina, maybe I would!" The knight placed their sword in its holster, and they waved their hand above their head. Vines with vicious-looking thorns grew up from the dust beneath Odd's feet. Odd jumped away to avoid them and then stared at them in awe, and the knight rushed behind him and tore at his skin with their sword. "You see? It wasn't me, it was you."

"Hey, no magic plants!" Odd protested as if 'magic plants' were against the rules. After further thought, Odd didn't even know what the rules were, let alone if they said anything about magic plants. Odd readied his paws again. "Laser Arrow!" He shouted again, landing another round of hits. Like before, the holes caused by the arrows were covered in vines, but instead of the vines being silver, they were green. "What?" Odd questioned, wondering why they had refused the silver coloring.

"Oh, geez, look at this…" The knight muttered, noticing the vines as soon as Odd did. "Fucking feline!" The knight charged again, and when Odd dodged it, a thorn from the magic vine became lodged in Odd's arm. He struggled to pull it out.

"Crap!" Odd called out as the knight charged again. He managed to pull himself away seconds before the knight lodged their sword into the place on the vine where Odd's heart had once been. "Come on! Why are you trying to kill me?"

"It's my job. Either I kill you or you kill me." The knight left their sword in the vine and threw both of their hands above their head, fingers overlapping at some points. They brought their hands down, the top of them facing Odd. A weeping willow grew up from the ground, and it wrapped its flexible branches around Odd and threw the cat boy against the wall of the arena.

"I already told you, _no magic plants!_" Odd called out. He pointed his paws at the knight and rapidly fired arrows at them, one after another landing and creating small holes in the vine armor. It was soon after that Odd learned his arrows had a limited number. "What the hell is this?" Odd complained after hearing a sound that resembled a toy gun without ammo coming from both paws.

"Oh, what's the matter?" The knight mocked with false sympathy, vines covering the holes the arrows had caused. The vines refused the silver coloring again, and Odd couldn't help but wonder if the silver meant a shield of some sort. "Is the kitty out of arrows?" The knight continued. "Unfortunately for you, I'm never out of sword." The knight pulled the sword triumphantly from the vine.

Odd remembered his claws, and he called them out slowly as the knight walked closer, as to not have the knight notice his back-up system. When the knight lifted their sword, Odd pounced like, well, like a cat onto the knight, causing them to fall backwards and drop their sword. He noticed that the helmet was locked into place by the armor, and he tore at the armor surrounding the knight's neck. It couldn't regenerate itself quickly enough, and soon after, it stopped trying altogether. When it had, Odd punched the knight in the side of the face to knock off their helmet.

The first thing he noticed was cocoa-colored skin. The next thing he noticed was after the knight turned their head to face Odd, and he saw their dark brown eyes and hair, then their red hair streaks and the lip gloss. Odd stood up suddenly, and the knight followed. The armor pulled itself away from the knight and Odd saw that underneath they wore a gray shirt, a black choker, a plaid skirt and black jeans.

Odd had not only been fighting a girl, but he'd almost let her win.

Now defenseless, the girl looked up to Odd and gave him the universal 'bring it on' sign. "Come on! Finish me off!"

"What? No, I mean, you're a—" Odd began and was cut off.

"A what? A girl?" She interrupted him. "So what? You started this, and now you gotta end it! _Kill me!_"

Odd crossed his arms. "Technically, _you _started this. Second, I'm not going to kill you. I wasn't going to kill you even if you weren't a girl." Odd thought about that for a few seconds. "But being a girl helped your chances."

"I don't need your pity! I can take care of myself!" The girl called out in protest. "And I knew that I could die the minute I stepped into this arena! I lost! _Do it!_"

The crowd began to chant 'kill her, kill her, kill her.' Odd became dizzy with the pressure, but he stood his ground—or, he thought again, he held his dust. "Who are you?"

"Sam Knight." The girl began to shiver with impatience. "If you don't kill me, the guards will!"

"That's sort of poetic justice, isn't it?" Odd said, referring to Sam's name. "I'm Odd, by the way."

"I don't care and it's fitting!" Sam fired.

"Y'know, you're sort of hot, in a dangerous kind of way."

"_Stop flirting and finish the job, will ya?_"

The doors that Odd had entered from opened, and Sam seemed to panic as they did so. She calmed down when two figures entered. The first was a boy about Sam's age with bluish skin, black hair, black eyes, white eyebrows and a black-and-red skintight outfit. Over his shoulder was a massive sword. The second was female, and she had dark hair, almond-shaped violet eyes, white metallic tube top, white fingerless gloves, white skinny jeans and tan boots that laced up. Her lips seemed to be coated in purple lipstick, and a gun inside its holster was strapped to her left leg. Odd thought that the girl was beautiful, and she took his breath away.

The boy reached for his sword, but the girl stopped him. "Calm down, William." She warned the boy as she stepped forward. "Nicely done, Odd," She congratulated the cat boy before looking to Sam. "Same goes to you, Samantha."

"It's Sam, but thank you all the same, Laurelei." Sam smiled.

"Wait; are you the Laurelei that those weirdoes who brought me here were talking about?" Odd asked as he looked to the girl Sam had referred to as Laurelei.

"Probably." Laurelei shrugged. "I'm the only Laurelei here, if I'm correct, and even if I wasn't, I'd probably still be the one to whom they were referring."

"They were concerned about what you would do if I died." Odd continued.

"That's defiantly me, then. I've got a mission for you, Odd, and I don't think anyone else can accomplish it." Laurelei looked up to Sam and William and dismissed them. Laurelei wrapped one arm around Odd's shoulder and she led him from the arena. "You see, back in a base like this one in New York, we used to have these members. They turned on us and have been on the run ever since."

"Why did they turn on you?" Odd asked, completely interested in the beauty, and the cat boy noted that Laurelei smelled different but pleasant.

"No one knows for sure. Some say that they misinterpreted a message and thought that we were up to no good while others say that they had just become greedy and decided to steal from us." Laurelei explained. "Like I said, they've been on the run, but we managed to put a pin on their location.

"Now, what I want you to do, Odd, is to go in and kill these fugitives." Laurelei explained as she passed the cat boy a packet of papers. Odd flipped through them, and he saw an elf girl with brown hair, a Japanese girl with burning eyes, a brown haired boy and a black boy with dreadlocks. "There's one other, but don't kill him. Just bring him back here to me. If you encounter any problems when you try to take him outside the fence surrounding the house where they've taken refuge, use this." Laurelei passed him two things—the first being what resembled a bomb and the other being another paper like the others in the packet. The picture on it was of an elf boy with blond hair.

"I don't have a problem with bringing this guy to you, Laurelei, but I don't want to kill the others." Odd protested.

"Here—I'll make you a deal. If you kill the fugitives I told you to kill and bring me the one I told you not to kill, I'll talk with our scientists and have you turned human again."

Odd's eyes widened. He considered that. "…what about Sam?"

"What about her?"

"Is she going to be alright?"

"That seems unlikely, Odd. I'm sorry."

"I'll do it if you add Sam's safety to the deal."

Laurelei smirked. "Smart boy. Alright, you've got yourself a deal. You kill the fugitives and bring me the elf boy and I'll turn you back into a human and Sam's safety will be guaranteed." The woman offered Odd her hand.

Odd considered turning her down anyway. He looked up to her violet eyes, then down to her pale hand. Would killing four people and kidnapping another be worth Sam's safety and Odd's humanity? It was a question of the history books, the cat boy thought, and it questioned not only him but his morals.

Odd grasped Laurelei's hand with his three-fingered paw.

"Good." Laurelei smiled. "One last thing. If you happen to see a girl with pink hair, tell her that I said hello."

"I'll do that. What is she to you?"

"Oh. Nothing much, really, just a half-sister, I suppose."

* * *

*I have 'Fall of X.A.N.A' for the Nintendo DS, and 'Claws' is one of Odd's attacks. I figured that I would incorporate 'Claws' for this to make it more interesting and give Odd something to attack with after his arrows run out.


	15. Chapter 15

_Chapter Fifteen: Broken Bonds_

Waldo opened the door to Aelita's bedroom and found Lyna and Jeremy still inside. "Morning, Wally." Lyna greeted as Jeremy nodded in acknowledgement.

Aelita smiled as she said, "Good morning, Daddy!" Aelita greeted warmly.

"Morning, all of you," Waldo said as he gave Aelita the small pill she was to take. "How are you feeling today, baby?"

"Daddy, can Lyna and I watch a movie?" Aelita asked hopefully. The hope faded a bit as she added, "And maybe go outside to play later…?"

"Go ahead and watch the movie, but don't go out." Waldo told her sternly. He saw the sadness in her eyes, and he took his daughter's face softly in her hands. "I'm just trying to protect you, sweetheart."

"From what?" Aelita asked with a certain sharpness to it that hadn't been there in the days before when she asked the same question.

Waldo looked into her green eyes as he searched for an answer. "The world." He said honestly. "The world's a cruel place, and there isn't a father alive who doesn't want to protect his daughter from it."

"Way to be a leader, Daddy." Aelita muttered sarcastically.

"What was that?"

"Nothing," Aelita smiled. "Okay, then, we won't go out. Or I won't, at least."

"That's my girl." Waldo pushed her daughter's pink bangs from her forehead and kissed it softly. "I'll always protect you, Aelita."

Aelita watched as Waldo waved good-bye and closed the door. He locked it, but the elves inside didn't panic. They could get in and out with or without a key. Lyna looked sympathetically to Aelita, and Jeremy looked from the human girl to the elfin one. "Lyna, that look on your face… it's freaking me out." Jeremy announced.

"I will smash you!" Lyna punched her brother's arm.

"There's the Lyna I know and love!"

* * *

"Okay, listen, Lyna, if you're going to watch a movie with Aelita, you can't pick anything with sex, violence, violent sex, sex violence," Jeremy began, knowing that if he didn't cover everything she wasn't allowed to let Aelita see she'd find some way around it. That's why Jeremy said pretty much the same thing three to four times. "Sexual references, guns, knives, alcoholic references, cannibalism, racism, sexism, profanity or stupidity in it."

"Well, _god_, Jeremy, way to take the fun out of Hollywood." Lyna said. "We might as well watch one of those movies we had to watch in first grade where the box said it was animated but really only contained the pictures from the storybook and some old guy reading the words that were written on the same page as that picture." Lyna skimmed through the movie case in the Schaffer's den. "But we can't watch that because it contains a large amount of stupidity."

"I don't want to get in trouble because you decided to pervert Aelita's mind!" Jeremy crossed his arms. "Do me a favor, would you?"

"We could watch a '_Little Einstein_' DVD, but once again, stupidity…" Lyna ignored her brother. "‛_Shrek_' has language in it, not to mention alcohol references, violence and I'm pretty sure sexual references here and there. The ones after it aren't much better; especially the one where Shrek and Fiona go to see Fiona's parents and it's all up in the 'Anti-Ogre' zone." Lyna sat up and looked to her brother as she said, "And that's really sad because ogres are some of the nicest people I've ever met."

"Lyna, are you listening to me?"

"No. Oh, they have '_Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry_' with that dude who played God in '_Bruce Almighty_'! Wait, there's a gun in that. And lots of inappropriate language that she's sure to pick up and use towards Gus, and then Gus might just kick her ass…"

"Whatever…" Jeremy rubbed his forehead and sat down, opening his computer.

"Oh! What about '_The Land Before Time_'! That was so sweet."

"Whatever, Lyna."

"Do dinosaur fights count as violence? And does the fact that there is always a chance to get eaten by a T-Rex count as cannibalism?"

"Only if the one worrying is a T-Rex."

"Fine then, Mister Party Pooper, _be _that way!" Lyna grabbed a movie case that Jeremy didn't see. "Aelita and I will just watch this, then."

* * *

At Kadic, Yumi couldn't concentrate on the math lesson. Quite frankly, she didn't care about what was written in white up on the chalkboard, anyway, and her mind was in another world. She looked out the window, seeing what looked like a purple cat boy step out of the forest and into the sun. _Stupid cat_, Yumi rolled her eyes. _He's going to get shot._ "Um, excuse me, I don't feel well; may I go to the infirmary?"

"Yes, Yumi. Do you need someone to take you there?" The teacher, Mrs. Meyer, faced Yumi with total ignorance to her creature side.

"No, ma'am." Yumi said politely. She left the math room with determination and she left through the front doors to find the cat boy. When she did, she called out, "What are you doing here?"

The cat boy looked to her nervously, and then he looked to a packet of papers. He looked between the papers and Yumi a few times, and he pointed his paw at her. "I'm sorry…" The cat boy apologized before shouting, "_Laser Arrow!_"

An arrow fired into Yumi's shoulder, and Yumi held it as it throbbed in pain. She reached for the fan she'd hidden in her shoe, and as she did so, another arrow hit Yumi's leg. She fell, and blood began to run from her leg and through the cracks in her fingers. Yumi held her fingers to her head as she summoned her telekinesis, and she made a rock fall onto the cat boy's tail. She'd been aiming closer to his body, but when she heard him release a scream that sounded more cat than boy, she figured she'd hit a weak enough spot.

The cat boy launched another arrow, which entered her torso and Yumi could've sworn she felt it skim her heart, which had then begun to beat faster than it had ever before. The arrow exited from Yumi's back and created a small dust cloud when it hit dirt. The cat boy must've thought it had hit her heart, and he panic-fired, which entered the demigoddess close to the wound near Yumi's heart but missed her heart completely. The arrow created another cloud of dust, and Yumi hit the dust. She hadn't died, but she did feel like she was in cardiac arrest and she was bleeding heavily. Yumi blinked from pain and saw Gus and Ulrich run to her side.

Ulrich's eyes welled up with tears and he shot a glance at the cat boy, who seemed about as terrified as Yumi and looked at the papers. He looked between the papers and Ulrich, and then the papers and Gus. The cat boy pointed his paw to Ulrich first, and then to Gus.

Ulrich forced his hand onto the ground, and it cracked. As Ulrich summoned the earth beneath his hand, Gus seemed confused at the action, and he remembered that Ulrich had clay covering his skin. He'd also been brought back to life by Yumi's magic spell. Gus concluded that it was only natural that Ulrich would have that power, and he'd only been able to summon it then because he was emotionally traumatized, not to mention golems traditionally had enough power to destroy or protect massive villages.

Ulrich formed a kantana with the earth and rushed forward to the cat boy. As he did so, Gus pulled his wand from his sock—he'd learned from Anthea that no one ever bothers to check your socks—and got to work on healing Yumi's wounds. The cat boy noticed this, and with his right paw he shot at Gus and with his left he dug into Ulrich's shoulder. The arrow hit Gus' arm, and he immediately gripped it.

Ulrich, on the other hand, did not flinch or back down. He gripped the cat boy's arm with his free hand and pulled the claws from his shoulder. The cat boy panicked when he didn't see blood, but he also seemed relived as well. Ulrich released the cat boy, pulled back the arm he'd just used and punched the cat boy in the nose.

Gus had ignored his wound, and he'd healed the wounds next to Yumi's heart and the exit points of the arrows used to create the bullet holes in the first place. As he started on the wound in her shoulder, it refused to heal, and Gus noticed there was no exit wound. He sighed gruffly, and he dug his dark fingers into Yumi's wound.

Yumi was losing consciousness from the wounds. The fact Gus had dug his fingers into one of them wasn't helping. She'd lost very little blood before Gus had been hit, but in the short time he'd used to hold his wound, more blood had seeped out, and even more when he'd messed up the healing spell and caused her blood to go out faster.

She was positive that she wasn't dead yet. But she knew she would be if the wizard didn't hurry.

Ulrich had succeeded in knocking the cat boy off his balance, yes. But he'd not yet managed to stop him or kill him. Whichever came first, in Ulrich's opinion. The cat boy muttered something, and then shouted, "I'm so done with you!" He pointed his paw at Ulrich's head and continued, "_Laser Arrow!_" The arrow fired and lodged itself in Ulrich's skull. It wasn't like it had hurt, but it had gotten dangerously close to the first 'e' in the word 'emeth' engraved into the clay covering his skin. If it had hit the first 'e,' all that would have been left would be 'meth.'

Ulrich remembered Jeremy telling him once that if the first 'e' was gone and 'meth' remained, he wouldn't be able to continue in his half-golem half-undead body. "Meth," Jeremy had said, "Is not only a very dangerous and addictive drug; it's also the Hebrew word for 'death.'" Removing the 'e' would cause the clay to remove itself from Ulrich's skin and the soul—or whatever, as Ulrich would use in his explanation to Aelita if she asked later, he decided—that had allowed Ulrich's body to remain the way it had been when he'd been alive would leave, and there was a nine-to-one chance of never getting it back.

Ulrich dodged another arrow, and he slashed at the cat boy's arm. The cat boy grabbed his wrist and fired an arrow into his heart—or, at least, where his heart would have been. Ulrich wasn't sure if he still had his heart or if it had decomposed—and watched as the golem put his ring finger in the wound out of shock.

Meanwhile, Gus was still fishing for the arrow. "C'mon… c'mon… come to Gussie…" The wizard muttered. He heard someone coming, and he looked to see who it was. He pulled his fingers from Yumi's wound and wiped the blood from his fingers as he stood. "You don't want to do this, dude." Gus warned as the cat boy came closer.

"You don't know what I want." The cat boy said as he aimed. "_Laser Arrow!_" The cat boy shouted, and Gus prepared for impact. "Aw, shit, not again." The cat boy sighed after nothing fired.

"You ran out of arrows?" Gus asked, crossing his arms. When he nodded, the wizard continued. "That's a textbook example of not being prepared right there." Gus waved his wand and muttered something, and when nothing happened, he said, "What the hell?"

"What's your excuse? You run out of magic?" The cat boy mocked in a frustrated tone.

"No, that's unlikely." Gus tapped his wand to his free hand a few times.

"Unlike you, I have a back-up plan." The cat boy smiled, summoning his claws once more.

"Aw, shit." Gus said, putting his wand away. He got into an offensive stance, prepared to fight the cat boy if needed. He charged, and the claws dug into the wizard's arm first, and then his shoulder. Gus kicked the cat boy, but he simply removed his claws from his arm and then to his neck.

The fighting continued until Gus collapsed like Ulrich and Yumi had. The cat boy looked to each of them, became terrified, and ran.

* * *

Laurelei opened the door to Waldo Schaffer's classroom. She exchanged her usual clothes for clothes that screamed 'corporate casual.' Laurelei entered the room as if nothing was wrong, and she looked to the faces of his students. She placed a file on his desk and tapped his shoulder. "Mr. Schaffer, may I speak with you outside for a moment?" Laurelei asked him. Waldo looked from Laurelei to his students. He nodded, and he followed the gancanagh outside his classroom.

"Can I help you, ma'am?" Waldo asked Laurelei impatiently.

"Yes, I suppose you can." Laurelei smiled with a hint of evil, and she cloaked Waldo in darkness. When the darkness faded, Laurelei smirked and left Kadic Academy with a sense of superiority.

* * *

Odd had been dropped off at Kadic by the same men who had brought him to the arena. They'd simply given him an address and wished him good luck before going on their way. Odd hadn't been expecting to see the Japanese girl Laurelei had told him to kill so quickly, nor had he expected her to drop a rock on his tail. After he'd seen the three human-like fugitives lying helplessly, he had become so frightened he hadn't even bothered to make sure they were dead. He looked at the address again and saw the house he was looking for soon after.

* * *

Lyna was completely into the movie while Aelita had pulled her blanket up over her nose. There was a scream from the television, and Aelita ducked beneath said blanket as Lyna pointed and laughed obnoxiously. "Oh! Did you see that? That was disgusting!" Lyna nudged Aelita softly. "Hey, are you alright?"

"I'm fine…" Aelita peaked above the covers and looked to Lyna with a sort of begging in her eyes. "Can you turn it off now?"

"Why?" Lyna asked, but she hit 'stop.'

"I can't believe I watched even that much… what did Jeremy say we couldn't watch?"

"Nothing with sex, violence, violent sex, sex violence, sexual references, guns, knives, alcoholic references, cannibalism, racism, sexism, profanity or stupidity."

"And you chose _that? _What _was_ that, anyway?"

"‛_The Texas Chainsaw Massacre._'"

"Why?"

"Because I hadn't seen it either and I was pretty sure it broke most of those rules."

The door was kicked open, and a purple cat-boy walked in. Aelita and Lyna stared at him, and he stared at them. He pulled out a packet of papers and looked from Lyna to the papers. His eyes then fell on Aelita, and he said, "Laurelei says 'hello.'"

"You're an agent of Laurelei?" Lyna asked, standing up on Aelita's bed. When the cat boy nodded, Lyna jumped over Aelita and landed in front of the cat boy. "What did she promise you?"

"Humanity…" The cat boy muttered, summoning his claws and tearing at Lyna's neck. She stumbled back. Lyna surrounded her hands in flames and launched them at the cat boy. The cat boy seemed unfazed when the fire reached him, and he ran forward. Lyna grabbed his shoulders and flipped him over and pinned him. The cat boy did the same to her and slashed at her repeatedly.

Aelita stood up shakily. "No, both of you stop this now!" She warned the two fighting creatures. As they continued to throw blows at each other, Aelita became nervous that one of them would die. She realized that, after '_the Texas Chainsaw Massacre_,' she'd probably be worried about others dying for a while. Gathering her courage, she screamed, "_**Jeremy!**_"

Lyna looked to her suddenly and called out, "No!" The cat boy scratched at her again. Lyna kicked at his chest and knocked him off of her. He landed, as cats do, on his feet. Lyna jumped up onto her feet and they went at each other again. Jeremy ran into the room to Aelita.

"What's going on?" He yelled over the screams of Lyna and the cat boy.

"Do you even have to ask?" Aelita screamed at him as she motioned to the fight. "Do something before they kill each other!"

Jeremy watched the fight for a few seconds before he prepared to do something. What he was preparing to do… Aelita could honestly say she had no idea. Either way, his eyes scanned the fight relentlessly, and he suddenly reached in and pulled the cat boy away from his sister. "Who are you?" He ordered, pinning him to Aelita's carpeted floor and placing his bare foot on his chest to stop him from moving.

"Odd," The cat boy responded. "My name's Odd." He was out of breath, but his eyes had hardened considerably. Odd grabbed Jeremy's bare ankle and threw him onto Lyna, and the elves crashed into Aelita's chest of drawers.

As Odd stood to walk over to them, Aelita grabbed his shoulders. "Stop it! Don't hurt them!"

"Stay out of this!" Odd ordered as he pushed her off of him and onto her bed. He moved the dazed Jeremy away from Lyna and dug his claws into the skin around her heart. He looked to Jeremy and reached for his packet of papers, but he left the packet alone and dragged the elf boy out of the room. Aelita ran forward and pounded on Odd's back.

"Put him down! _Put him down!_" The human girl ordered as she pounded on the cat boy's back furiously. Odd rolled his eyes and closed the door gently. Aelita crinkled her nose and remembered Lyna. She ran to the elf girl's side, and she saw numerous wounds caused by Odd's claws. "Poor Lyna…" Aelita murmured, rubbing a bloodstain from her eyebrow like a mother would do. Aelita opened her door and opened the door to the master bedroom and saw her mother wasn't inside it.

Aelita looked around and pushed on the wall at the end of the hallway. It turned and Aelita saw her mother. "Mommy!" The thirteen-year-old cried out, and her mother looked at her in confusion. "Lyna's hurt! I think she might be dying! You've got to help her!"

Anthea saw her daughter's terrified expression and she nodded. The two pink-haired humans ran back into Aelita's bedroom and the smaller of the two watched as her mother tended to the elf girl's wounds. Aelita looked out her door and saw Odd dragging Jeremy away. "Mommy, is Lyna going to be alright?" She asked, not taking her eyes off the cat boy.

"I think so. Whatever caused these wounds didn't have the guts to break anything deeper than the skin. I think she's just out because of blood loss." Anthea responded quickly as she wrapped Lyna's wounds.

"Don't let her die," Aelita said, walking nervously out of her bedroom.

"I won't, baby." Anthea didn't look at her daughter.

Aelita stepped onto the stairs and turned away from her mother. "I'm going to get Jeremy." She ran down the stairs, her bare feet making small pitter-patter noises as they hit the floor. Her mother simply nodded, not understanding that Aelita meant she was going to chase after Odd. As Aelita reached the front door, she saw a rodent in the doorway. It looked to Aelita and crawled up her leg and back until it reached her shoulders. Aelita stepped out onto the porch and felt a sharp pain in her head. She screamed, and she fell to her knees.

* * *

Odd hadn't walked very far before the elf boy became a pain to drag. He didn't bother to make it so that way it wasn't. As he approached the gate he'd entered from, he was stopped by some kind of electricity. He remembered the bomb thing and instinctively jabbed it in front of him and let go. Odd suddenly felt stupid by doing that, and he was surprised when it stayed where it was. There was a small click, and Odd could suddenly see a pink force field surrounding the property. He heard what sounded like an explosion but felt nothing, and the force field broke apart. Odd heard a young girl scream out of pain, and he looked back. He saw the pink haired girl out on the porch, and she was holding her head and on her knees.

Odd wondered if he should help her, but he remembered that he had a job to do and chose to ignore the screams of the girl.


	16. Chapter 16

_Chapter Sixteen: Beyond the Gate_

Lyna was awake—sort of. Her eyes were closed and her sense of direction was completely off to the point where she couldn't tell if she was facing the head of the bed she lay on or the end. Her eyes twitched and she snapped them open, and her position became clear. Her legs were close together but relaxed and inclined at different angles. Her left palm rested on the comforter, and her right palm faced the ceiling with her fingers looking a bit like the widely known sign for spider. Her face was looking at her right hand. The elf girl sat up quickly and announced, "I'm awake!"

She was in Jeremy's room, and no one else was around. She rubbed the back of her neck in confusion, and she didn't remember what had happened—not exactly. She remembered watching a scary movie with Aelita and then being attacked by a cat boy. She remembered the cat boy flinging Jeremy at her, but after that… nothing.

Standing up, Lyna pushed on her back to stretch it. She opened the door and saw Gus, Yumi and Ulrich sitting there with a depressed sort of aura around them. "I'm awake," Lyna said again, and her friends looked to her for a short period of time before looking away. Gus sipped hot chocolate, Ulrich stuck his fingers into a hole over his heart and Yumi smacked him and muttered, "Stop _doing_ that. It's gross."

In the background, Lyna heard Anthea say, "C'mon, c'mon, c'mon, pick up pick up pick up pick up…!" There was a pause and then, "Waldo, I—" There was a longer pause before Anthea said, "Waldo, its Anthea. There was some sort of attack in Hermitage and at Kadic. Lyna, Yumi, Gus and Ulrich are injured. Jeremy's been kidnapped. Aelita's missing. Pick up your god damn phone!" The pink haired woman jabbed the 'off' button on the home phone.

"Anthea?" Lyna asked, entering the living room as the woman sat down in an armchair and pushed back her bangs. "You checked Aelita's room, right? 'Cause Jeremy's usually in there when he's not working."

"Yes, I checked her room."

"They couldn't have gone far. Jeremy can't leave the property, and Aelita wouldn't go far without him."

"I checked everywhere."

Lyna walked outside, skimming the area for her brother or Aelita. "Jeremy? Aelita?" She called out weakly. She skimmed again. "Where have you gone…?"

* * *

Aelita had only been delayed by a few seconds earlier when she'd felt that pain. She was sure of it, because any longer and her mother would have stopped her. But she hadn't. Aelita ran barefoot through the forest. If that were true, then Odd must have been extremely strong. Jeremy wasn't a large boy, but he wasn't small either, and he probably weighed the same amount as Odd. Aelita had lost sight of them.

She brushed away branch after branch, not caring that the bark scratched her skin or that leaves were stuck in her hair or that her feet were bleeding. Aelita moved forward, following the trail Odd had left her.

Or at least she hoped the trail was Odd's trail. It could have belonged to a bear or a puma or something. She stopped and thought for a moment. Aelita looked to the ferret on her shoulder. "Do pumas even _live_ in France?" She asked it, and it raised an eyebrow like it understood her.

She shrugged and continued, and since she was not accustomed to walking in the woods, Aelita found that her foot had become trapped under a root. She stood and dusted her dress and knees off. Her knees had been skinned, but she didn't feel whatever pain it gave. Her mind was on something that would cause her much more pain if it happened than her skinned knees or bleeding feet could ever give her since they did happen.

Aelita, if she turned back, would lose Jeremy forever.

She'd left Lyna with her mother, so she knew that the elf girl would be safe. She knew that the others had been nearby her father, and she assumed they, too, were safe. But Jeremy was with Odd, and Odd had nearly tried to kill Lyna, so Aelita would not turn back until she was positive Jeremy was safe. He just had to be safe.

He just _had _to be.

* * *

Jeremy had opened his eyes twice on the journey—once when Odd had been dragging him through the forest and another as Odd was talking to two of the Xanadu's guardsmen. Both times Jeremy had woken up he'd been treated to an electrical shock—very unpleasant. The third time Jeremy opened his eyes, he recognized where he was right away. He'd been in a similar place when he'd been in New York, and he tried to sit up. He couldn't. He was tied down by metal bars, and Jeremy placed his head on the table he was lying on. He realized it was metal, and he lifted his head up and smashed it back down on it. When he opened his eyes, he sighed, "Shit. I'm still alive."

He looked around. It was the same monotonous gray as the Xanadu always used in the rooms where most members weren't allowed. There was the table Jeremy was lying on, another that vials of colored liquids sat on, and a set of automatic glass doors. Jeremy was alone, and he wondered why no one was making sure he didn't try anything funny. The doors opened, and Jeremy's eyes flashed to look at who entered.

He saw Laurelei, Odd, a scientist, a girl about Yumi's age, a boy the same age as a girl enter the small testing room. _Why so many? _Jeremy questioned in his thoughts, and then the doors opened again, and Jeremy's eyes widened when he realized who it was.

Xana.

"I assume you're the infamous Jeremy." Xana said in his raspy voice, and Jeremy heard two voices in it. The first was the voice of a man, and the other of a teenage boy.

"I assume you're the infamous Xana." Jeremy responded, too frightened to put in the mocking tone he had originally wanted.

"You've caused us a lot of trouble." Xana ignored the blond elf as Laurelei shrugged on a lab coat. "And I intend to make it so that your reign of terror ends here and now."

Jeremy watched as the scientist hand Laurelei a vial, and she held her hand over it and concentrated. She'd called her poison out, and it dripped quickly into the vial. The scientist sucked the poison up through a needle and handed said needle to the gancanagh. "I'm sorry to tell you that I will not personally be seeing to this. You will be seeing to your own demise, elf boy, and it may take a while." Xana added. He smiled as Laurelei walked over, needle in hand. "With the help of my daughter, of course."

Laurelei struggled to remove Jeremy's turtleneck, and she shot a look to Odd. "Why'd you strap him to this fucking thing before you took off his turtleneck?"

"Well, I didn't know you wanted me to." Odd defended himself.

Laurelei stared at him for a while before she continued. Jeremy struggled. If what he thought was about to happen _was_ about to happen, he wasn't going to make it easy for her. Laurelei noticed that after a while and she bitch-slapped him, and some of her poison was absorbed by Jeremy's skin as she did so. It created a burn quickly, and as Jeremy was in shock, Laurelei removed his shirt.

She laughed evilly as she held the needle to Jeremy's heart. He looked up to her, and she accidentally looked into his eyes.

His eyes. If Laurelei had liked anything about Jeremy, it had to have been his eyes. His blue eyes seemed to go on and on forever. Laurelei sucked in her bottom lip and looked away as she bounced nervously up and down. She looked into his eyes again, just as scared and sad as they had been the last time she'd looked. 'Don't do it, Laure, don't do it, don't do it…' Jeremy's eyes begged.

She looked past the emotion to the scars. Memories flooding into her head made her lose grip on reality and drop the needle. Every word he'd ever said to her pounded in her ears and hurt her. Every touch, every kiss, every time, every conversation, every fight, every nickname, date and anything else that Jeremy and Laurelei had been together for were reviewed in her head and broke her heart.

She realized why her poison was deadly. She couldn't handle being in love.

"I can't do it," Laurelei suddenly called out, and she tried to run away from him. She bumped into Xana, and she buried her head into his shirt. "Dad, I can't." She cried out again before she actually began to cry. "I just can't be responsible for giving him something that I know is going to make him..." She cut herself off.

"It's alright, Laure." Xana rubbed his daughter's head and picked up the needle. "Change of plans." The man told Jeremy as he held the needle to his heart. Jeremy squeezed his eyes shut, and Laurelei looked to her former lover and adverted her eyes to the tiles below. Xana pushed the needle into the elf's skin.

* * *

Aelita noticed a strange metal thing sticking up from the ground. She turned the wheel on it, but it refused to move. "Need some help?" A voice asked, and Aelita turned.

"Puck!" Aelita said with her eyes wide. The elf nodded as he walked past her to the metal thing. "You're real!"

He turned it easily, and the ferret hopped from Aelita's shoulder to the elf's shoulder. "Hello. You must be Mort." Puck said to the ferret, and there was a bunch of nonsense chatter that came from the small mammal. "He says for you not to be offended, it's just that I smell closer to his master than you do."

Aelita nodded, understanding. Puck opened the metal thing, and they saw a ladder leading below ground. "My lady Aelita, I'll go first to see if it's safe for you to go down." Puck said, placing his small hand on Aelita's arm gently before going down the hatch. There was no sound for a few minutes, but then Puck shouted, "It's alright! You can come down!"

Aelita was still for a moment, but she entered the hatch and closed it behind her.

* * *

"Are you sure you went the right way? I think we made a wrong turn back at the tree with a face." Lyna said, looking out the window of Gus' van nervously.

"Look, I know where I'm going, god damn it! I can see over the steering wheel, unlike some people I know!" Gus cried out in frustration, and the van bumped up as it hit something unseen.

"You sure didn't see that, did you?" Lyna asked in a mocking tone.

Gus opened his door quickly and jumped out. He looked under the van and saw a huge hole. "_My baby!_" He cried, pounding on the side of his van with frustration. Yumi and Ulrich left the van, and Lyna slid over to the driver's seat and watched as Gus pounded his fist on his van. "My poor baby…" He sobbed.

"Get over yourself. This trip isn't about your stupid van." Ulrich sighed. Lyna applauded the golem as she jumped out of the van and slammed the door. Yumi traced the van's path, and she saw a metal hatch like the one they had used in New York sticking up from the ground.

"Hey, guys!" She called out as she pushed leaves away from the hatch. "I think I just found our ticket in."


	17. Chapter 17

_Chapter Seventeen: Underground_

Xana disposed of the empty needle and looked to Jeremy. He felt no pain as the elf boy looked surprised and scared, and he felt no pain when the elf's eyes locked with his and begged for a reason. Did he have a reason? Jeremy had come too close on several occasions to stopping his grand plan. The best and fastest way of doing so would be to kill the elf before Xana continued.

But as he turned to Laurelei, he was surprised by the pained look on her face. His daughter looked to him for a second, then away in shame and pain. Xana knew very little of emotions. Most of his emotions he had given up when he took over the Xanadu. To rejoin the creatures that had left Lyoko years before its formation… that was his father's side goal. To find Franz was his main goal.

But Xana didn't care for the human. Humans, as he saw it, were small obstacles in an otherwise perfect world for takeover. Humanly emotions such as pity were overrated.

Laurelei knew her father thought that. She would've had no problem shooting the elf boy's heart or slicing his throat or any other kind of assault. But there was something inside her that kept her from injecting her poison into him again. Laurelei saw her father start to leave, and she walked behind him. "Wait," Odd, who was standing by the wall next to Sam, called to the gancanagh. "You promised me humanity and Sam safety."

"Not now, Odd. I've got to see to something else first." Laurelei shrugged. "Besides, I want to show you and Sam something first, and while you're watching it you may want to remain that way." Laurelei ignored the cat boy's obviously frustrated expression. "Just wait here and make sure Jeremy doesn't go anywhere." She rushed out the door behind her father, the scientist close behind her.

"Go where? He's locked to the table." Odd stated, and he turned to look at the elf boy. He'd started to tremble, but otherwise, he was still. He walked closer to Jeremy, but the elf boy seemed completely uninterested in him. "I'm sorry about the others." Odd apologized, and he looked over the trembling elf lying before him. Purple burns were scattered across his chest, and there was one on his face that Odd didn't remember seeing when he was bringing him to the underground hideaway.

Jeremy looked to Odd quickly, but he looked away from the cat boy almost as quickly as he could blink.

* * *

Aelita stepped close to the wall and stalked in its shadow. She couldn't help but think that the walls and tiles on the floor were a poor color choice for an evil organization. The walls were pale yellow, and the tiles were white and yellow laminate. The sickly human stood out against the wall, and Puck looked to her. "You'll blend in better if you pretend like you belong here."

Aelita looked to the elf, who did seem like he belonged there, but when she looked closer, the human girl could see that he seemed to belong there too much. He was faking. She walked over to him, and she tried to seem as natural as Puck. "Where would they take Jeremy?"

"The elf boy?" Puck asked rhetorically. "It depends on what they were going to do to him. Do you have any idea what their purpose would be?"

"For kidnapping him? No, I don't know much about it." Aelita shrugged, and Puck looked at the human girl in confusion. "What?"

"Nothing, my lady. Sometimes, I just find you to be a complete novelty."

* * *

Lyna and Gus had separated from Yumi and Ulrich. Yumi and Ulrich were searching in one of the lower levels, where they kept the arenas. The lighting was dim in the halls where they searched, and it made it difficult to see faces, but there was a problem in the arenas that was both the same and the exact opposite, and the duo had mutually decided not to check the arenas until they knew he wasn't in the other rooms. As Yumi opened one door that blocked animals the Xanadu used from escaping, Ulrich adjusted the holster for his sword. It was strapped around his waist, and Ulrich drew the sword. It was more of a kantana, like the earth one he had used towards the cat boy, but it had been given to him by Amaterasu.

For this reason it was special.

"Ulrich, open the door to Xana's box for the nearest arena." Yumi ordered, closing the door again. Ulrich returned his kantana to his holster and did as the demigoddess asked. Inside, the golem heard voices, and he motioned for Yumi to come closer.

"How did you get the boy to oblige?" A man's voice asked, and from the multiple lectures they had heard in New York, the duo knew that it was Xana.

"I promised humanity for him and safety for the Knight girl. He won't receive either, of course, but he did make the deal." The bittersweet voice of Laurelei laughed. "Odd has killed our enemies for us. Now we get Jeremy to kill them before the poison kills him."

"You seem to have gotten over your earlier dilemma." Xana complimented.

"As for that, I have no idea why that happened…" Laurelei pondered, and Ulrich shut the door as quietly as he could. He looked to Yumi, who nodded, and she motioned in the direction of the elevator.

As they rushed down the empty and vast hallways, Ulrich wondered how they were going to get Jeremy out of the situation he was in.

* * *

Jeremy had waited nearly half an hour. He had experienced tremors and the feeling of insects beneath his skin, but the symptoms of gancanagh addiction had ended there. He was still able to think clearly, and the only out of character thought that pulsed through his head was the desire to find and kill Laurelei.

'I'm sorry about the others,' Odd had said. He meant that he'd killed the others, Jeremy knew. The elf had not expected anyone to save him—after all, it was his fault for staying dazed long enough to be kidnapped in the first place—but thinking of his friends dead made him upset and angry, and Jeremy was feeling pretty useless lying there on a metal table waiting for death.

Maybe not waiting for death. But at least waiting for insanity. He figured that those were the only two endings for him. He'd either go completely mental or he'd drop dead.

He didn't care anymore, Jeremy realized. He looked to Odd and the cocoa-skinned girl standing next to him, and he announced, "I'm bored, stiff and leaving." He concentrated, and he felt him body turn into water. It was one of his favorite tricks—becoming water—but when he moved and passed through the bars keeping him on the table, he couldn't help but look back at the table and bars. He rubbed the back of his neck and asked rhetorically, "How come I didn't think of that earlier?"

Odd summoned his claws and the girl drew her sword, and Jeremy looked to them. "Hey, can I borrow that?" Jeremy asked the girl, and he took the sword from her hands. Jeremy held it behind his head and with his other hand, he held his ponytail. He quickly pulled the hair tie down a bit and with the girl's sword, he cut off his hair. "Thanks." He said, and he handed the sword to her. The elf looked to his extra hair, and he removed the tie and tossed the blond locks into the trash.

The girl looked to Odd and Odd looked to her in confusion. Jeremy heard them argue quietly for a while, and the elf rolled his eyes. He grabbed his turtleneck and his glasses. After he pulled the turtleneck over his head and replaced his glasses, the elf ran his fingers through his shorter blond hair. As he approached the door, something skimmed his arm. "Laser Arrow!" Odd had yelled, and Jeremy felt something skim his arm again. "You want to go?" Odd asked, and Jeremy looked at him. He laughed to himself, hearing the second meaning.

Before Jeremy answered, he looked to the clock on the wall. "Sure, it'll be a waste of time," The elf shrugged, pulling water from the air and freezing it.

* * *

As Aelita and Puck searched in vain on the uppermost level, Aelita noticed something. "Didn't we already see this?" She asked, pointing to a door marked 'Sentinel.' "We're going in circles."

"Well, why don't we just knock on the door and ask for directions?" Puck asked rhetorically, and he approached it. Aelita tried to stop him, but she couldn't. After the elf knocked on the door, an owl man opened it. "Can you direct us to where an elf named Jeremy is being held?"

"May I ask why?" The owl man asked, looking the same elf over.

"We're new scientists. We were ordered by Xana to assist the ones already there." Puck lied easily, looking the owl man in his eyes.

"I need to see your identification that says as much." The owl man's arm twitched as he held it next to his leg.

Puck's eyes widened. Mort hopped from his shoulder to Aelita's. "Identification?" The elf asked, becoming nervous. "We haven't been supplied with it yet."

The owl didn't hesitate. He quickly pulled out a gun and shot the elf in his forehead. Puck fell back from the impact, and Aelita screamed and ran to his side. "Puck! _Puck!_" She cried out, and she looked up to the owl, who pointed the gun at her. She dodged the bullet that fired from it and scurried away, and trailing from her eyes were tears of blood.

* * *

Lyna and Gus walked up on the uppermost level, and they looked to the faces passing past them. The faces were friendly and smiling, some creatures while others human. They smiled at the members of the Xanadu, too, knowing that they all thought that the duo was in the clan as well. When the hallway emptied, Lyna and Gus stopped walking to look around.

"They picked interesting enough colors, huh?" Gus asked sarcastically. The sound of small footsteps running towards them. The wizard and elf saw Aelita turn the corner. "Aelita!" Gus shouted, and he stepped in front of her to stop her sprint.

Aelita looked up to the wizard, and Gus could see that her face had trails of bloodstains coming from her green eyes. She was terrified, and an owl man turned from the same corner. Lyna stepped forward and fired a stream of flames at the owl man, and it struck his heart mercilessly. As Lyna made sure that the owl man didn't get up, she saw the small footprints Aelita had left when she ran. They were made of particles of dirt and blood. "Aelita, are your feet alright?"

The human girl shrugged. Lyna looked to Gus, who nodded and lifted Aelita easily. He put one arm behind her back and rested it on her shoulder blades, his hand resting on her forearm, and the other arm rested beneath the human girl's knees. Lyna revealed the medical tape she always carried and examined the soles of Aelita's feet. Her soles were scratched and bleeding, and they were dirty. Lyna gently wrapped the medical tape around her feet, and she felt bad that she couldn't clean them before she did so.

"What are you doing here?" Lyna asked when she finished, and she stood on her toes to look at Aelita's eyes. Her knees were skinned, and Lyna wrapped them as well. Aelita's right hand had a death-grip on Gus' cloak, which he'd put back on before they left, and she'd leaned her head on him.

"I chased Odd because he kidnapped Jeremy, and then Puck helped me get in." Aelita said, her voice shaking and tears of blood dripped from her eyes once more. "The owl man killed Puck, and he tried to kill me, too."

"People do that when you sneak into their top-secret bases." Lyna joked, trying to get Aelita to smile, but she didn't. "Odd kidnapped Jeremy?" She asked seriously, and Aelita nodded.

Lyna and Gus looked to each other quickly, and Lyna pulled out her cell phone. "I get service here but I can't get it at the mall? God's got it out for me." She dialed quickly, and she held it up to her ear. "Hey, Yumi, where are you? Okay, Aelita—yes, we found her, obviously—said that Odd kidnapped Jeremy, and Odd had said earlier that he was an agent of Laurelei. Have you seen her?" Lyna paused while Yumi said something. "Alright, was Jeremy with her? No? Damn it. Alright, I'm going to try calling Jeremy. Why? Because he might have it."

Lyna hung up, and she rolled her eyes. "Why, indeed." She dialed again, and while she waited, she instructed, "Gus, we're going to the elevator and down to the floor below the one with the arenas. That's where Ulrich and Yumi are." The wizard nodded and stepped over the smoking corpse of the owl man. "Jeremy, where the hell _are_ you? I'm worried sick! Why'd you even let yourself be kidnapped?"

There was a pause. "That's a good reason. Now, where are you again?" Another pause. "They have testing labs? I thought that was just a New York thing." There was a long pause, and Lyna's eyes widened. Aelita actually thought it was amusing how fast Lyna's emotions could change. It was like she could go from sweet to evil on a dime. "Oh, my god, she is going to die, that bitch! Okay, Gus, Aelita—she chased Odd because he kidnapped you, Jeremy, and Gus and I just found her a few minutes ago—and I are going to get Yumi and Ulrich. After that, we're going to Xana's box and if you meet us there fast enough, I'll let you help me kill Laurelei, okay?" Lyna smiled as she paused again. "Okay then, B.B. Love you, too! See you soon!"

"What's the good news?" Aelita asked hopefully at Lyna's radiant expression.

"For starters, Jeremy's alive and Sam's a spy." Lyna explained.

"Who's Sam?" Aelita asked, and Lyna smiled wider at the hint of jealousy in Aelita's thirteen-year-old innocent voice.

"I have no idea. But she'd on our side. She didn't say so out loud, but there's a symbol on the back of her tee-shirt that belongs to an organization called S.A.X." Lyna shrugged. "The bad news is that Jeremy's been injected with gancanagh poison. Again." Lyna sighed.

Aelita said nothing, but the blood from her eyes began to flow faster. She didn't dare rub it because it usually proved impossible to remove over a short period of time, but she did wish that the bloody tears would replace themselves with regular tears because they smelled metallic.

Seeing that, Gus looked to Lyna sharply and ordered with his eyes to counter with more good news, whether it was true or not. "On the other hand, it hasn't gone to his head yet and he can still think rationally. He wants to kill Laurelei and _that's_ a bit out of character, but that's also pretty much a neutral feeling throughout our ragtag team, so…" Lyna shrugged, but Aelita's tears continued. "Cheer up, kid, we'll find him, and everything will be okay."

* * *

Jeremy had managed to take down Odd rather quickly. Though Odd had put up a hell of a fight, and he was a pretty good fighter, Jeremy had more experience fighting, not to mention he was pissed off and that's never a good thing to add into an equation. Sam was dragging the cat boy down the hallway to the elevators, and Jeremy walked ahead of them. He pushed the button and waited impatiently for the doors to open. When they did, the elf boy held them open so Sam and Odd could get on.

"If you don't mind me asking, what happened to your shoes?" Sam asked unexpectedly.

"Honestly, I have no idea." Jeremy shrugged, and he trembled. He groaned because of it. And he buried his hands into his pockets. "I hate this."

Odd began to regain consciousness. Sam helped him to his feet and Jeremy shook him gently. When Odd still seemed out of it, Sam screamed, "_Hey, dipstick, wake up and smell the blood-soaked daisies, will ya?_" Odd jumped in a cat-like manner at the exclamation, and he looked from Sam to Jeremy quickly.

"What's going on?" Odd asked, scared and groggy.

Jeremy and Sam looked to each other. "Laurelei's going to change you back, remember?" Sam said, the lie hidden somewhere deep inside. "She asked us to bring Jeremy, too, and that's why he's here."

Odd nodded and stood, too wiped to question 'Laurelei's' reasons. Jeremy shrugged as the doors opened, and the trio left the elevator and went towards Xana's box. Sam kicked the door in, and Jeremy was surprised when he didn't see the others inside, but Laurelei seemed ready. She was alone, and they wondered where Xana had went for only a second.

"Aw, _shit_." Jeremy cursed, and Sam nodded, dropping her hands from Odd.

"I'm surprised you knew where to find us, Jeremy," Laurelei said, standing. "But you're all alone now, aren't you?"

"Doubt it," Jeremy said, and he stepped calmly inside. Sam followed, Odd at her heels. Laurelei's face seemed smug, and Jeremy smirked on the inside, realizing at that moment he had an advantage.

Laurelei thought he was addicted.

* * *

Elsewhere, deep below the testing labs, Waldo found himself bound in chains and when his calls for help were unanswered, he thought he was alone. He sulked and closed his eyes to stare into the darkness of his eyelids. But even when his eyes were open, he saw nothing but the bone-chilling darkness, and there was no difference. Waldo didn't know how long he was there for, but he sat in the darkness long enough to lose track of whether his eyes were open or closed. A door opened and crashed against a wall, knocking dirt onto Waldo's head. Light broke the darkness, and when the science teacher's eyes adjusted to the luminosity, he saw the bones of his father, Xanadu, lying helplessly in front of him.

"Franz," A raspy voice cracked the everlasting silence. "I have something that may be of interest to you."

"I go by Waldo now," The man answered, his voice unshaken.

"_Waldo_," The voice corrected. "This matter involves your daughter."

* * *

A/N: Sorry this took forever! My power went out yesterday. Don't ask me, I was asleep when it happened.


	18. Chapter 18

_Chapter Eighteen: __Dum Spiro Spero_

Anthea panicked at the top of the stairs. A light gathered at the front door, and the woman looked to it, wondering. The light was pink, and it manifested into the form of a thirteen-year-old girl. It reached for the door, and Anthea rushed down the stairs to stop it. The light passed through the door when it heard Anthea coming. The only thing that it left was a glowing 'H' on the door, which quickly faded.

"Oh, _god_." Anthea said, panicking. "Hermitage is going looking for Aelita." She ran to the kitchen and repeatedly opened and closed one of the cabinets, foods rushing through her head. Nothing appeared in the cabinet, and normally, Anthea wouldn't have minded. Anthea minded at that point because Hermitage had taken every drop of Aelita's energy that it could find. "Lord knows what it'll do to Aelita when it finds her. That much energy…"

* * *

"Was this door locked before?" Yumi asked Ulrich as she fiddled with the doorknob to Xana's box. Gus and Lyna stood behind them, and Aelita was still in Gus' arms. He'd refused to let her walk because of the wounds on her knees and feet, defending himself by saying he would catch hell from Jeremy later. "I don't remember you saying it was locked, not to mention it opened easily…"

As the gang gathered around the door to examine the lock, Gus placed Aelita gently on her feet to get closer. She stretched, rubbed at the dried blood trails on her face and looked around. She hadn't been below the uppermost level—she and Puck _had_ been going in circles—and she wondered why the lights were so dim lit. As she stared up to the lights on the ceiling, she placed her hand on something, and when she looked to see what it was, she saw a baseball bat in a box that was attached to the wall.

"A baseball bat?" She asked herself, opening the door to the box and pulling it out. It wasn't heavy enough for Aelita to struggle carrying it, but she guessed that it could do damage. For the millionth time, she wished she wasn't sick. If she wasn't, a baseball bat would not have to become her weapon of choice.

But she was sick. So the bat would have to do.

"How is it that you can survive a bullet in the brain but you can't break some stupid lock?" Aelita heard Yumi mutter suddenly, and she heard only moments later the sound of metal scraping against metal. She turned back to the others, and Ulrich had drawn his kantana. Aelita watched as the golem sliced at the locked doorknob. The small metal sphere collapsed and made clinking noises as it bounced down the hall. "Oh. Uh, never mind…" Yumi laughed nervously as Ulrich glared at her for a second before kicking the door.

The door slammed against the inside wall, and Aelita scurried behind Gus, partly because she wanted to see the shocked faces of those inside and partly because she was terrified. Gus looked to the small human girl cowering behind him and almost laughed as he laid his eyes on her bat. Lyna, on the other hand, paid no attention to Gus or Aelita, but her eyes ran from Laurelei to Jeremy, who wore a blank expression.

The blank expression she had come to expect from him when he was around Laurelei. The expression that said the gancanagh controlled every aspect of his life.

Jeremy smiled with an evil secret and winked. Lyna smiled ever-so slightly at another mystery she may never solve about her brother. Laurelei glimpsed to Jeremy, at on cue, his blank expression returned, and he turned his attention to her. She smiled as innocently as she could—Lyna could see even from the distance she was at that the smile was both evil and completely forced—before she looked back to the gang. Shaking away her shock, she turned to Odd and stated, "I thought you told me that they were dead."

"They—they—they were!" Odd stuttered, and he stared at the gang with the same look as a deer gives someone just before they get hit.

"Next time you go to assassinate someone," Yumi pulled out her fan, and the others did the same with their weapons—Ulrich and his kantana, Lyna and her knife, Gus and his wand—as if by some unspoken cue. Aelita stood dazed for a moment before taking a stance with her bat. "Make sure they're dead before you leave."

"Although, I give you points," Ulrich nodded. "I would've left, too. We give pretty good 'dead' impressions."

Yumi looked to him. "You _are_ dead."

There was a pause between the two. Lyna rolled her eyes and moved inside. "So, Laurelei, I suppose you know what I'm here for."

"Your brother, of course." Laurelei sighed, and out of the corner of her eyes, Lyna saw Jeremy flinch for a brief second. She knew why—Jeremy was afraid that Laurelei would pull him to her. Laurelei had pulled the poison from her lips shortly before the gang arrived.

Jeremy had managed to survive the poison injection. Lyna could already see that he'd taken a physical poisoning as well. She questioned how long he would hold up before it went to his head.

"Of course." Lyna agreed. "Are you going to give him back or what?"

"No, not yet. I've still got a job for him to do." Laurelei brushed a stray hair from her face. She turned to Jeremy, who once again turned his blank attention to her. "Jerry- baby?" Jeremy raised an eyebrow, and though Laurelei must've thought Jeremy had done so as a silent question for what she wanted him to do, the gang knew what he was really silently asking.

'Who the hell is Jerry-baby?'

Laurelei smirked as she pointed to Sam and Odd. "Kill them."

Jeremy pulled water from the air. Odd and Sam braced for impact. Aelita jumped forward to stop him, and Lyna held her back gently by sticking out one arm. Jeremy froze the water, began to bring it down with much force, and just seconds before it struck and killed the two Laurelei had indicated, the ice melted and turned to water, and it fell upon Sam and Odd like rain. Jeremy shrugged and announced, "Just kidding!"

Odd relaxed his shoulders and Sam placed a hand on her heart. They sighed in relief at the same time, and Aelita saw Laurelei's hand compulsively reach for her gun. "Jeremy, I said kill them…" She warned.

"And _I _said 'just kidding.'" The elf boy shrugged again, obviously not caring that Laurelei was half-ready to shot him. "So I guess were both disappointed. You're disappointed that your stupid plan failed again, and I'm disappointed that you didn't realize I wasn't drooling all over you like a gancanagh-addicted person would."

Laurelei drew the gun, and Jeremy stuffed his hands into his pockets, not caring. This agitated the gancanagh, and she forced a smile. "Jeremy, do this one thing for me. Please?"

"Your chances are doubtful." Jeremy looked her straight in the eyes. "It's not my hobby to pick on the innocent."

"But I love you…" Laurelei begged. Ulrich and Yumi only barely managed to keep in laughs, but Lyna couldn't. The way she said that had been so fake it was almost sarcastic. "And I don't want to have to kill you…" Ulrich and Yumi joined in with Lyna's laughter.

Jeremy's expression remained straight and strong. "If you really loved me, you'd put me out of my misery." Laurelei dropped her guard, and Lyna almost laughed harder until she noticed Jeremy was completely serious. Her face quickly became both shocked and grim. "So go ahead. Kill me—I know you want to. Take your best shot." Jeremy spread out his arms to make himself as large a target as he could. "I deserve as much."

Laurelei held the gun up and steadied her hands. She readied herself to pull the trigger, and there was a loud 'bonk' noise. The gancanagh felt a sharp pain in her head at the same time, and she collapsed, falling forward onto her face. The gang watched her, and they looked up to see who it was. Aelita stood there, bat in the air. "Dang," The human girl said, placing the bat on her shoulder. "She was really starting to get annoying."

"I've tried sneak attacks, full-on attacks, knock-out gas, ambushes and more to try to get her on her knees, even," Jeremy said, his position relaxing and he rubbed the back of his neck. "And you manage to knock her out with a baseball bat. Color me impressed."

"You cut your hair," Aelita noted, dropping her bat and rushing over to the elf boy, embracing him warmly before running her small fingers through his blond hair. "It so short now. And soft. I like it!" Aelita smiled in approval, and she remembered something.

"What?" Jeremy asked as she looked to Laurelei.

"Before I forget," Aelita said, walking over to the knocked out gancanagh and pulling the gun from her limp fingers. "I'll be taking this." She opened a window overlooking the arena and threw the gun as far as she could.

Lyna ran over, hugged her brother briefly, and then continued her stride to Aelita's side. She leaned on her hand. "Y'know, I never knew these windows opened." She looked back to Laurelei and pushed her over with her shoe. "Mind if I get the honor of scratching out her eyes, Jerry-baby?" Lyna joked as she said Laurelei's pet name for her brother.

Jeremy shrugged, and as he went to approach Aelita, he was tackle-hugged by Gus, Ulrich and Yumi, all of whom appropriately shouted 'tackle-hug' as they did so. Lyna asked Aelita to open the window, and after the human girl did so, the elf girl lifted Laurelei up and eventually managed to fling her out the window. After doing so, Jeremy managed to drag himself out from the bottom of the pile caused by the tackle-hug.

"Never. Again." He warned, pointing to the three human-like creatures. They smiled. Aelita looked to him, and she noticed the burn on his face.

"What happened?" She asked, rushing over to him and placing her small hand gently on it.

Jeremy cringed, but he didn't bother knocking her hand away. "I got bitch-slapped." He announced, and Aelita smiled. What he meant… she hadn't the foggiest notation. They rolled their eyes on-cure when Lyna sighed sarcastically. Aelita pulled her hand away, and when she noticed something… _off _about it, she looked at it closer. She eyed Jeremy's face, and then her hand again.

"Is this supposed to happen?" She asked, showing the elf boy the burn that had transferred itself from his face to her hand.

"_Shit!_" Jeremy called out, looking her hand over. "How did that happen?"

"How should I know? All I know is that you guys are weird, and this has been the most interesting week of my life."

"Well, I sure am glad to here that." Jeremy crossed his arms. "Now put the burn back on my face. I don't want it, but I don't want you to have it even more."

"You're just being greedy." Aelita joked.

Odd had been watching the pair talk for a while. They were a sight to see—human girl with pink hair and lush green eyes meets blond elf boy with eyes like oceans and a death wish in hell-like paradise—but on that note, he figured that he couldn't have seemed any more normal than them. He had a tail, Odd noted silently, and he flicked it. He'd mastered the flicking of flies. In the doorway, Odd spotted Xana, and next to him stood a familiar face. "Mr. Schaffer?" He asked loudly, confusion obvious in his voice.

The gang turned quickly, and their positions had changed completely since Odd last looked to them. Sam had moved to talk to Lyna and Gus. Yumi and Ulrich had begun sparring. The only people who hadn't moved were Aelita and Jeremy. Aelita flushed, and she side-stepped to stand behind Jeremy. Odd wondered about that, and he stood up.

Lyna smiled half-heartedly. "Hi there, Wally. I've gotta tell you, you need to step away from the crazed villain before he hurts you."

Waldo Schaffer opened his eyes, and it was obvious he wasn't happy. "You will be silent, elf child." Waldo ordered Lyna, and she shivered at the tone. She didn't dare talk again.

"Chill, dude." Gus sighed, pulling his wand. He didn't know exactly which spell he would use against the man, but he figured being ready to cast one would help his train of thought. "She was just trying to make sure you didn't die, is all…"

"And you, wizard." Waldo's eyes shot from Lyna to Gus, and he recoiled at the coldness of his stare. He walked forward towards Jeremy and Aelita, and at first, he barely noticed the elf boy standing between him and his daughter. His eyes flashed to Jeremy as he pushed him backwards a ways.

"Personal space," Jeremy explained somewhat rudely, "and you're in it." Waldo almost said something, but Jeremy placed a hand gently on Aelita's shoulder and added, "No, she's not in my personal space. I consider _my_ personal space to be _her_ personal space's personal space." Jeremy smiled triumphantly, but he managed to lose everyone else. Aelita smiled weakly, hoping that it was a compliment.

If it wasn't, he would have meant it to be funny, anyway.

Waldo easily picked up the elf boy—it wasn't hard—and flung him to the side. As the gang—including Odd, Sam and Aelita—motioned to run to his side, Waldo grabbed one of Aelita's arms. He squeezed it—whether or not he meant to do that remained unknown—and as he did so, Aelita cringed and shouted, "You're hurting me!"

Waldo looked Aelita in the eyes. "I told you not to go out, didn't I? I _told_ you not to go out and I _told_ you the world was cruel and you went out anyway! Do you _see_ now? Do you _see_ what I meant?"

Aelita looked to her father, and she struggled to break free from his grasp. Waldo was larger and stronger than her, and she was stuck in his grasp. "Yes, Daddy." She muttered, looking to him with bloody tears in her eyes.

As Jeremy stood up and regained his balance, he urged the others away. His eyes locked on Waldo, and something seemed off about the man.

"Can't we just go home?" Waldo begged, his tone retaining a hint of anger. "Can't we just forget tonight?" He lightened his grip on Aelita.

"Aelita, that's not your dad." Jeremy warned, taking a defensive stance with a face marked by fear. "Xana's replaced him with a doppelganger."

Xana turned to leave, and Yumi placed a hand to her head. A light surrounded the villain and he was dragged back inside. Gus ran over and slammed the door. Aelita looked slowly to Jeremy and then back to 'Waldo.' She looked to his grip on her arm and said, "I thought that you had said that you would protect me. Is this…" With her free hand, she motioned to Jeremy. "…and that how you're going to protect me? Is that how you're going to help me?"

'Waldo' seemed shocked. "He was—"

"Don't help me anymore, Daddy!" Aelita shouted over him. "You are dead, Daddy, in my eyes!" Aelita's tears of blood ran faster, and Jeremy looked to Ulrich. Ulrich looked to him, and the two creatures nodded to each other.

"How dare you speak to me that way…?" 'Waldo' warned, and Aelita prepared for whatever coming. Ulrich drew his kantana and passed it to the elf boy. "You have no idea what I've sacrificed for you…" Jeremy threw the kantana at 'Waldo,' and it lodged in his shoulder. Blood poured out from the wound, but the man released Aelita. Aelita looked in horror at him, and his Waldo façade faded away.

The original form did not return. It laughed evilly as it faded from sight and died. The kantana fell and clinked as it did so. Jeremy walked over and picked it up. He looked to Aelita and asked, "Are you alright?"

Aelita nodded, and Jeremy smiled sympathetically. Ulrich and Lyna joined the pair as the others surrounded Xana. "Get Aelita out of here. We'll hold off Xana." Ulrich ordered, and Jeremy passed him his sword.

"Don't hold him off for too long. Get yourselves out, too." Jeremy said, and Ulrich smiled.

"We will. Wait for my signal." Lyna said. She took off her shoes and passed them to Aelita. "Put these on. They may be too big, but the last thing we need is for you to get hurt more and then get your stupid feet infected." Aelita hesitated. Lyna rolled her eyes impatiently and added, "I'm used to the forest. I grew up in them. So put the damn shoes on."

Aelita took them from her. Lyna and Ulrich joined the others. She slid the shoes over her small feet and she looked to Jeremy. "Don't worry. She seems gruff, but she's just worried. Trust me."

"What about you? You're barefoot." Aelita expressed concern for the elf boy as they waited for the signal.

"Well, my feet are too big for Lyna's shoes." Jeremy shrugged. "Second, I may not have grown up in the forest like Lyna, but I have lived in them for a long time. She's not as worried about my feet as she is for yours."

Lyna waved to them, and the pair ran out the door. Jeremy hit the button for the elevator, and the doors opened immediately. "Why are there no stairs in this place?"

"Impractical. Most people don't even use the elevators, and a lot more construction would be required." Jeremy answered as the elevator brought them up. The pressure made Aelita feel woozy. The doors opened, and they ran out and turned the corner to the exit. Aelita saw Puck's corpse still lying where he'd been shot. She ran to him and as she reached for him, he returned to being a doll.

"Puck!" She cried out, and she picked him up.

"Aelita!" Jeremy called out, and the human girl looked to him. She held the elf doll close to her heart and ran to him. The sound of guards rushing down the hallway echoed, and Jeremy made the polite gesture for 'enter' towards the ladder. "Ladies' first," He said, looking down the hall and waiting for the guards. When Aelita climbed up the ladder, Jeremy made a wall of water and froze it before following her.

"Jeremy! Come on!" Aelita called down to him, and Jeremy climbed up the ladder. "Wow, you're fast!" She said, helping him out of the metal hatch.

"No, you're just not used to seeing elves run. I'm pathetically slow." Jeremy said. Aelita smiled, took his hand and ran. Jeremy blushed slightly, and he rolled his eyes at himself. "Jeremy, you're useless." He scolded himself.

"Are you sure about that?" Aelita asked, eyeing him. He blushed harder, not realizing that his self-insult had been audible.

"Yeah," He nodded. "Why?"

"Because I don't think I want a best friend who's useless." She said, and Jeremy opened his mouth to say something, but he stopped himself. He smiled for no reason that was apparent, and when they came to a natural-formed step made of earth and a tree root, he hopped down in front of her and offered her his hand. Laughing, she took it and walked in a mock-regal way down the step.

"I don't know how I ended up with a best friend who was so pretty." Jeremy complimented subconsciously, and Aelita looked to him.

"What?"

"What?"

"You just said I was pretty."

"Oh. I meant to say that in my head, but it's true."

Aelita became nervous, and she looked away from him. Jeremy did the same, but Aelita impulsively stood up on her toes and kissed his cheek*.

Jeremy blushed, and he ran into what he thought was, at first, a fire elemental. When he looked to it, he saw a manifestation of pink light. The form it had taken was of a thirteen-year-old girl, and it—or 'she,' he supposed—held their arms out. From underneath his turtleneck, the burns he had became visible, and they disappeared. Not just, Jeremy noticed immediately, from sight. But from his person completely.

The purple burns showed up again on the arms of the light girl. They, too disappeared, and the girl passed her hand over Jeremy's forehead. The word 'Aelita' became visible on his forehead, and like his burns, it disappeared. "Your debt has been repaid," The girl said, and her eyes turned to Aelita. The light became less noticeable and inside, the human girl could see the figure it masked.

The girl inside's hair was pink, long and curly, and her green eyes were had more vigor and life. They wore the same nightdress and both were barefoot. The girl smiled at her. "Remember me, my lady?" She asked Aelita.

Aelita did remember. She'd seen the girl in the dream shortly before she met Jeremy. "Yes…"

"I hoped so." The girl smiled wider, and she walked behind her. Gently, the girl placed her wrists together so her palms faced the same direction but her fingers opposite ones. She placed her hands carefully on Aelita's back, and when she moved them, she left faint glowing handprints. The prints changed to look like wings, and then faded. "I'll always be waiting for you to want me again."

Aelita understood who the girl was as she took on her light manifestation again. "Wait!" She called out, but the girl made of light disappeared into the darkness. Jeremy silently pushed away the branches in front of them, and Hermitage sat only a few minutes' walk away. "She was…"

"She was what?" Jeremy asked, looking to Aelita. Unlike the human girl, Jeremy had not seen the girl inside the light.

Aelita looked to him, and she smiled softly. "No one important."

Jeremy huffed, knowing that if she'd been no one important that Aelita wouldn't have tried to stop her. He motioned for her to walk ahead of him, and when she did, he asked, "Aelita, what happened to your arms?"

Aelita stopped and looked at them in the moonlight. She took her eyes off her arms to look up at the sky. The sun had still been out when she chased after Odd, but the moon had risen by the time she returned. She looked back to her arms, and she rubbed the purple burns on them softly. She hadn't been surprised after remembering who the girl of light had been that the burns were there.

Just like how something that goes up must come down, something that disappears must reappear somewhere.

"Don't worry, it doesn't hurt or anything." She shrugged, and after further thought, added, "I bet Mommy made dinner, and I'm tired. Let's go in."

Aelita walked off silently. Jeremy watched her before he followed. "What a crazy day." He muttered up to the moon.

* * *

*Nobody's lip-locked yet, if I'm not mistaken. Guess that's good. Nobody likes face suckers.

A/N: Sorry this took so long! I hope it's alright. By the way, the title of this chapter means 'While I breathe, I hope.' It's from South Carolina. Yeah, South Carolina!


	19. Chapter 19

_Chapter Nineteen: Wings Will Take You There_

"You children must be upset. I'm afraid you simply do not understand." Xana remained calm as he looked each teen in the eyes. He was generally a calm man, if not completely devoid of emotions, and he took no interest in the teens. He was, however, impressed that they had survived for as long as they had. As he skimmed their eyes, he saw the varying anger in each expression. "I can see there's no hope in showing you the light."

"I'll show you the light," The elf girl—Karolyna, he supposed—said as she created a bright fire that blinded him for a second, and he thought they would use it to escape. When he looked again, they still surrounded him. "And though it may confuse you, there's still no hope for you."

Xana stood in a calm position, and he didn't bother attacking them. "I suppose you think you're clever."

"I suppose you think you're right." Karolyna countered.

The wizard—August—stepped forward. "We know who you are." His eyes were serious, and he didn't waver in his voice.

"You know nothing." Xana snapped, and the tone of his voice would have surprised him on normal circumstances. He looked around, and he held a button down on the wall. "Attention creatures. This is Xana speaking. We will be relocating to New York." He let off the button and looked back to the teenage creatures around him. "And even if you did know something, you would only know a small fraction of the big picture."

The demigoddess—Yumi, daughter of Amaterasu—waved her fan horizontally once in a fluid motion. Air smacked Xana's face, and he glared to the girl. Though Yumi and Amaterasu looked nearly exactly alike, the half-human creature had failed to retain the sun goddess' ability of sunlight. It wouldn't have made much of a difference in the long run, Xana decided, if she had control of sunlight or the wind. "We know you and King Franz were once the same person."

Karolyna and the wood faerie—Samantha—seemed shocked by that. "Ah, yes. The fool separated me from him. And why? He'd fallen in love with Anthea, a human princess forbidden to marry creatures so no creature would have legislation over another." Xana became angry, and the creatures surrounding him backed up. "And yet he wanted to marry her anyway, and he gave up his creature side. This had… unseen side effects, I suppose.

"Franz failed to realize that since he and I were one and the same, his emotions are mine, and when I learned of his plan, the pain drove me to kill. Since then, I have banished the human emotions he cursed me with." Xana closed his eyes. "Find the Human King, by all means. He's somewhere inside. But the guards will not take lightly to your intrusion." His body became dark and diluted. "Humans and their lifestyles of chaos will soon be dead. All those who stand and fight for them will die with their hellish ways." He warned as he disappeared.

* * *

"Sissi? Sissi, are you awake?" Hervé Pichon called out to the dark-haired girl sitting across from him. The room was dimly lit and the pimple-plagued boy looked around in the darkness. There were five cages, but one hung ajar and there was no one inside. To his right was Sissi, who seemed to be uncharacteristically translucent, and to his left sat another dark-haired girl, but she wore glasses.

"Don't bother, Hervé, she's out cold." The girl warned as she pushed her glasses farther up the bridge of her nose. Hervé looked at her. Emily LeDuc, he remembered. She was a year older than he and Sissi. "She has been since that purple lady forced her to eat that rainbow thing, remember?"

"Shut up, Emily!" Hervé ordered the ninth grader. As he looked at her longer, the greasy-haired boy saw that she seemed different somehow. Emily's hair dripped with water, and her eyes—once brown—were the color of waterfalls just before they reached their misty end. A blue teardrop was painted on each of her shoulders. Her sleeves, he noticed, had been sliced off.

"Lay off it, both of you!" A third voice called out. Hervé had to lean forward to look to the owner. The new girl, Taelia Stones, crossed her arms. Her strawberry red hair was messy and her dark green eyes were narrow as she stared to the others. Her ears had become long and pointed, and her entire body seemed slimmer and nimble. "In the meantime, how the fuck do we get out of here?"

Hervé shrugged, and he returned his attention to Sissi. Besides her translucent appearance, Sissi seemed different. When he pondered that, he noticed that he _felt_ different, but he couldn't put his finger on it. When Sissi opened her eyes, Hervé shouted, "Sissi!"

Sissi opened her eyes and sat up. The translucent texture to her skin began to glow like the northern lights, which added light to the dim room. "What the hell?" She asked, looking at her skin in both wonder and disgust. "I'm glowing!"

"Oh, Sissi, you're so pretty," Hervé complimented, jumping at the chance.

"If only I could say the same for you!" Sissi snapped, and she folded her glowing arms across her chest. Hervé looked to his arms and saw nothing out of the ordinary. "What's up with you two?"

"I'm a water faerie, thank you very much." Emily snapped.

"And I'm an elf!" Taelia defended. "Furthermore, you shouldn't be talking, you stupid sylph!"

"What? You're going to hear from my father about that, you mythological minx!" Sissi barked.

"Oh, such big words for someone so dense!" Taelia teased her coldheartedly.

"Guys, guys!" Hervé shouted over the girls to silence them. "Stop fighting and figure out a way to get out of your cages!"

"Why? They let William out not so long ago." Emily shrugged. "They'll let us out, and if not, someone is bound to notice we're missing and come find us!"

"As much as I hate to say it, Hervé is right." Taelia agreed with the boy. "We don't know how long it's going to take. Besides, we must have magical powers now, and this is too good an opportunity to practice them to miss out on."

"And you're calling me stupid! So what if you've got ears that stretch from Paris to Los Vegas, and so what if you've got wet hair, and so what if I'm glowing?" Sissi pointed out. "It doesn't mean we're magic or whatever!"

"Excuse me, but we might as well try!" Emily folded her arms. "It's not likely we're all on LSD here, people! I mean, think about it. If we were, where the fuck are the dancing bananas?"

"Come on, Sissi, please?" Hervé begged the glowing girl, who sighed accordingly.

"Alright, I'll play along." She huffed. "But don't expect me to believe that when I point my finger at the lock and think about a blast of energy to fly out of it that it will, okay?" On cue, what Sissi described happened as she demonstrated what she meant. "I _so_ saw that coming." Sissi lied after gawking a bit.

"Yeah. Quite frankly, the only way you couldn't have seen that coming was if you were a _little_ bit stupider than you already are." Taelia agreed sarcastically. She watched as Emily picked her cage's lock and motioned for the water faerie to help her.

* * *

"Putting the guards to sleep was a good idea, Gus," Sam complimented as Odd helped her out of the hatch. "Shouldn't you guys be looking for Schaffer, though?"

"We should, but we have to go and make sure my idiot brother and his human girlfriend are alright." Lyna shrugged before pointing her thumb in the direction of Hermitage.

"Okay. I've got friends who work with me in the S.A.X on the inside. I'll ask them to find the king for you, and then I can get my trees to send the dude back in your direction." Sam smiled as she said that. "In other news, I'll have to report back to S.A.X. They'll want to know that I can't get back on the inside and our agents will have to be pulled out before the clan moves to New York."

As Sam turned to leave, Odd looked at her. "So you're just leaving?"

"'Fraid so." Sam shrugged. When Odd looked at her sadly, she defended herself with, "Hey! Don't _look_ at me like that! It's my _job!_ I _swear!_"

Gus walked over to the van, Ulrich close behind. He looked under it and pulled out his wand, and he tapped it near the hole a few times. He sighed, pulled his head from under the van, opened the driver's door and slammed it. He muttered something and then, the van sprouted wings.

As Odd, Yumi and Ulrich entered the van, Lyna gawked for a few seconds. "Well, damn. That really does have to happen from the driver's seat*."

* * *

As Aelita opened the door, her mother ran towards her and hugged her tightly. "My baby! Don't ever scare me like that again!" Anthea looked her daughter over and noticed the bandages around her feet and knees, and when her eyes landed on the purplish burns on her arms, she asked flatly, "Good Lord, kid, what happened to your arms?"

"Well, when Jeremy and I were walking back here, we saw this girl who was the manifestation of the powers I had when I was five before I got sick and she made Jeremy's burns glow. The burns transferred themselves from his chest to her arms, so when she disappeared, they burns reappeared on my arms." Aelita explained. Anthea looked from her daughter to Jeremy, and the elf boy nodded.

Anthea stood and said, "Well, the burns are supposed to be permanent. I can't do anything about that…" Her train of thought wandered, and she asked Jeremy, "You're a water elf, right? Can you fix it?"

"Sure. Do you have a knife?" Jeremy nodded, and he put his hands in his pockets.

"What?"

"A knife. Since the cause of the burns lies underneath her skin, I've got to cut it open to separate the poison from her arms." Jeremy explained. "I'd have done so on myself, but it's harder to separate poison from your own body…"

"I'd rather have her keep the burns!" Anthea declared. "I mean, come on! It won't harm her, and it's sure to build character…"

"On that note, being locked in your bedroom for eight years won't harm someone, either, and it sure builds character." Aelita muttered.

"The burns won't help her. Not to mention she has to use her explanation, and I'll bet you five dollars now that people won't believe her." Jeremy argued.

Anthea stared at the elf, who stared back. She looked to Aelita, who smiled. "If you scar her arms, I'll kill you." Anthea warned the elf, and she took Aelita's small hand gently and led her up the stairs.

Jeremy watched them for a second. "Can you kill me anyway?" He asked, and Aelita laughed like it was a joke. Anthea stared at him, and he shrugged. He'd meant it, and he followed them up the stairs. There was a small squeaking noise as a ferret hopped up onto Jeremy's shoulder. "Oh, there you are, Mort."

The elf boy reached into his sleeve and pulled out his sister's knife. Even he didn't know exactly how he did that. It was a talent he possessed.

Anthea stood next to the door as Jeremy walked inside Aelita's bedroom. Aelita sat cross-legged on her bed and she offered her right arm to Jeremy confidently. Jeremy, on the other hand, was nervous, and he looked to Anthea. "Do you really have to stand right there? You're freaking me out."

She raised her hands to her shoulders, palms facing out, and she left. Jeremy nervously made a small cut in Aelita's arm. While Aelita didn't even flinch, Jeremy cringed. The human girl laughed. "What? Do you think this is funny?" Jeremy asked.

"Sort of." Aelita smiled, and Jeremy rolled his eyes. He concentrated with his eyes closed, and Aelita watched him intently. He held one hand at her fingertips, and the other above her cut. He moved the hand over the cut closer to her arm and then back, which caused the blood that had begun to seep out to enter Aelita's arm again. The other hand he moved slowly up her arm without touching it, and behind it, the purple burns faded. After a few elongated seconds, Jeremy's hand was above the cut and he lifted his arm. The purple poison followed, and he waved his other hand over the cut. It vanished.

"How on Earth…?" Aelita asked in wonder, and her green eyes flashed up to Jeremy's blue ones. "You're a water elf. How'd you do that?"

"The poison of a gancanagh is sort of watery. It moves easier through the body that way…" Jeremy shrugged as he looked around for a place to put the poison. Aelita picked up Lyna's empty popcorn bowl and handed to the elf sitting on the floor next to her bed. Jeremy smiled and placed it in the bowl. "…and so basically I just focused on the water in it and took it from there. As for your blood, well… that was just a trick I picked up." He stood and rounded to her other side. "Okay, other arm."

Aelita watched in amazement as Jeremy repeated the process.

"Magic rocks!" She announced, rubbing her arms where the cuts had been, fascinated that no trace remained. "Jeremy, earlier tonight…"

Jeremy prepared for impact. He had no idea what the girl was going to ask him. His voiced thoughts? Her kiss on his cheek?

"…when the girl told you that your debt was repaid and my name disappeared from your forehead…" Aelita continued. "…what was that all about?"

Jeremy suppressed a sigh of relief. "Well, remember when I told you what it was like to be addicted to a gancanagh?"

"How could I forget?" Aelita shuddered.

"At one point, I fell asleep, which is one stage of the addiction." Jeremy said. "I was a step away from death at that point, so Gus and Lyna snuck in here to steal the antidote. Apparently, when your mom gave the antidote to me, Hermitage placed your name on my forehead until I paid off my debt to it."

"That's sort of stupid." Aelita commented. "I mean, what's the point? It's just a name."

"Well, Hermitage is using your energy, isn't it? It's going to put you before anyone else. There was a field of energy around Hermitage, and whenever I touched it, it shocked me. That kept me inside." Jeremy said, and Aelita frowned with guilt. Jeremy motioned for her to stop feeling guilty. "But I guess I paid it off. Lord knows how I did it! I don't feel like I did anything." Jeremy placed his elbow on Aelita's bed and leaned his head on his hand.

"Are you joking? You were the first person I met that came from the outside world." Aelita smiled and hugged the blond elf. "You saved me from a doppelganger, not to mention you and your friends became my best friends on the face of the earth! Like I said, this has been the most interesting week of my life. No joke."

Jeremy scoffed. "Yeah, and no one will blame you if me and my friends perverted your brain."

"What?"

"Ruined."

"I know that. How?"

"Well… you've seen my sister!"

Aelita laughed. "Y'know, before this, I never thought magical creatures existed. And now I'm a princess of an alternate reality full of them, aren't I?" She looked to him, and he seemed surprised that she knew.

"Yeah," He smiled. "You are." She'd reminded him of the one thing he didn't want to think about.

"It's sort of ironic."

"It _is_ ironic. There's no 'sort of**' about it."

Anthea poked her head in. "Aelita, you've got to get some sleep." She said to her daughter, who nodded. "_Sooner_ rather than _later_. Good night. Jeremy, come on."

Jeremy stood and waved good-bye to Aelita. She looked to Puck, and she felt his forehead. There was no trace of a bullet wound anywhere. She flicked off her light, and through her covers, the wings shone through.

* * *

*I love how she isn't surprised that the van has wings.

**I'm not joking. It is ironic. Sort of like a street light being out with the rest of the city during a power outage even though its right next to the power station. _That's_ ironic.


	20. Chapter 20

_Chapter Twenty: Our Goodbyes_

**Fair Warning: Sappiness Ahead**

The gang, including Odd, walked into Hermitage slowly. Odd rubbed one of his ears slowly, and Gus noticed as much. Lyna opened the door to Jeremy's bedroom, and when she didn't see him, she motioned for the others to follow her up the stairs. She tried to open Aelita's bedroom door, but it was locked. She looked inside the den, where she finally found her elfin brother. "Hey, Jeremy," She smiled and walked in.

Jeremy was sitting cross-legged and he was meditating. He opened one eye and smiled. A pink energy was in front of him, and every so often, it became larger. "That's not you, is it?" Ulrich asked as he entered behind Lyna.

"No," Jeremy said, his voice monotonous as he continued. "I'm asking Hermitage to send all of Aelita's energy here."

"Why?" Ulrich asked, leaning against a bookcase.

"After Anthea binds it to something material besides Hermitage, she's going to pack everything up and prepare to relocate." Jeremy explained.

"The Schaffers are leaving Hermitage? What about you?" Yumi said, eyes wide.

"There are too many creatures around, and even if they do leave, they know that Aelita and her family lives here now." Jeremy opened both of his eyes. "This should be it, I guess."

"What. About. You?" Yumi repeated, anger obvious in her voice.

"You guys don't have to worry about me anymore." Jeremy said, his voice confused. It was peculiar, and he noticed that they seemed concerned. "Okay, don't give me that look. I want to die, but I'm not going to kill myself."

Odd walked over to Jeremy and stared at his expression. It wasn't one of grievance but one of confusion upon retrospect. "So, what then?"

"Hermitage says my debt is paid off. I'm not bound here anymore." Jeremy sat up in the chair to look at the faces of those around him. Odd showed no signs of enthusiasm, but the others looked like they might have exploded from the glee.

Lyna ran over to him and hugged his neck. "That's so great!" She smiled and laughed, and as she hugged him, Jeremy could feel warm, happy tears on his ear. "We can go home now!"

"That's the thing…" Jeremy added. "I don't know if I want to go home."

Lyna smacked the back of his head. He'd expected that. "Why not?"

"Aelita." Jeremy said. "I was the first person she met from the outside world. I don't know if I can leave her now."

The group looked to each other. They sulked, and the feeling of the room became tense with depression. "I've died and gone to hell, haven't I?" Jeremy asked. The creatures in the room shrugged.

"But you can't stay here, Jer. If you tell Waldo—when he gets back, that is—that you don't have a debt anymore, he'll make you go home, anyway." Yumi said.

"Where is he, anyway?" Jeremy asked.

"He's at the Xanadu base. Sam's going to get some of her inside agents to help him get out." Ulrich shrugged. The golem looked to Odd and asked, "Why do you keep rubbing your ear like that? Does it hurt or something?"

"Oh." Odd laughed nervously. "No, I'm just sort of upset that Laurelei didn't get rid of it like she said she would. Daughter of an evil villain, right? What did I expect?"

"Well, if you're like my brother, you expected—" Lyna began.

"Don't even finish that sentence!" Jeremy interrupted.

"I just wish I could be human again." Odd said, flicking his tail.

"They injected you with G.M.S, didn't they?" Jeremy asked, and Odd nodded. "They can't get rid of it, then. They can get rid of it if they'd made you eat something like they do most humans, but the G.M.S is an injection and it binds itself to DNA with a death grip."

Odd looked to Jeremy in confused shock, and Gus explained, "It means you're stuck like that."

* * *

Waldo wandered out of the forest, and he was greeted warmly by the sight of his home. A faerie climbed down from a tree, and it looked like Sam besides the fact her red hair stripes were green and her skin resembled bark. "C'mon, mister, you're house is just over there, right?"

"Yes. Thank you." Waldo thanked her. He stumbled, and Sam grabbed onto him to restore his balance. "Thank you again."

"No prob." Sam shrugged, and she watched the man climb down the hill. "Poor dude. God knows what he went through."

* * *

Anthea helped her husband inside and to bed. "What happened?" Waldo grabbed his head, and he shook it before responding.

"I was working, and then a woman asked to talk to me. She surrounded me in darkness, and I was confronted by Xana when a light finally broke the darkness." He grabbed his head, and it was obvious he was in pain. "I can't remember much else."

"Oh." Anthea cooed, and she ran her fingers through his graying hair. "Waldo, it's getting more and more apparent that this place isn't safe…" She looked her husband in the eyes. "…and I'm not comfortable with Aelita staying here. We're leaving, Waldo, we are."

"No, Anthea, you are." He held his wife's hands. "I'm staying here. I've got a job to do, and even if I am killed by the Xanadu, at least then the creatures will stop looking for the royal family."

Anthea almost cried. She placed her head on her husband's shoulder. "Waldo, you're an idiot."

"Then why did you marry me?" He teased.

"Someone had to protect you from the big scary monsters, remember?" Anthea reminded him with a sorrowful smile on her lips. She kissed him.

"Um… excuse me?" A voice called out. Lyna stood in the doorway. "Jeremy's collected all of Aelita's energy." She continued. "He asked me to come get you, Anthea."

"Alright." The woman stood, and she grabbed a clear necklace, and she followed the elf girl into the den. Anthea silently placed the necklace in the energy, and she watched as it consumed it. When it had done so completely, she grabbed it before it fell. "Thanks for doing that." She said to Jeremy.

"No problem." Jeremy shrugged.

As Anthea left, Gus asked, "How did you do that, by the way?"

"I focused on the energy and then asked it to gather together. Really. That's it." Jeremy shrugged. He stared up at the ceiling.

Lyna picked up Mort and scratched his head. "Are you going to help Anthea pack?" She asked her brother.

"Probably. More time here, I guess." Jeremy shrugged.

Yumi nodded. "I don't blame you."

Jeremy said nothing, but he felt his eyes grow hot from holding back tears.

* * *

Aelita gently placed Puck in her last box. She closed it and held the flaps down while Jeremy brought the tape across it. She looked to the elf's sober expression and smiled, trying to get him to do the same. He looked up to her for a long time, blinked, and turned back to the box. 'Aelita's Bedroom,' he wrote on it in big letters. "Why are you so quiet? We're just moving."

"Yeah, I know." Jeremy said, placing the tape on the floor and placing both hands on the box for support as he stared down at it. "And so am I."

"You're coming, too?" Aelita asked hopefully, and Jeremy's tears shook in his throat. Aelita didn't see that, but she did see his arms tremble. "Are you okay?"

"No…" Jeremy muttered. "I'm not going with you and your mom."

"Well, we can't be moving all that far away. You can visit all the time!" Aelita said, and Jeremy almost laughed at her innocence.

"Unlikely." He shook his head.

Aelita crossed her arms. "Why? I wouldn't mind. You'd be no bother to me…"

"I'm going home, Aelita." Jeremy blurted out. "I live across the ocean. I can't fly. We won't see each other for a long, long time, if we see each other again at all."

Aelita looked in his eyes, and she kept her smile on, looking for 'gotcha' to escape from his lips.

It didn't.

"Don't!" She cried, wrapping her arms around him possessively. "I'll miss you too much!"

"Same here." Jeremy said, and he laughed sourly at the clichéd moment. Then again, had he expected anything less? "I wish I could take me with you. My parents would love you."

"Do it!" Aelita shouted unexpectedly. "I'll go find another box! You can put me in that!" Jeremy burst out laughing, and Aelita stared at him seriously. "Why are you laughing…?"

"You guys leave tomorrow, right?" The elf asked, pushing a frustrated hair from Aelita's face as she nodded. "I leave in fifteen minutes with the others."

"Jeremy…" Aelita's eyes began to fill with tears, and Jeremy was relieved that they were normal tears and not ones of blood. He didn't know why she didn't cry blood every time.

He kissed her forehead gently. Aelita remembered something, and she looked under the frame of her bed. "I, uh, took these a while ago. I was going to return them sooner, but, um…" She pulled out Jeremy's shoes, and she laughed, but she was still crying.

"My shoes!" Jeremy announced as he took them and slipped them over his socks. "When did you get my shoes?"

"Well, I saw you in the kitchen one night in socks but no shoes and I was wondering what kind of shoes you wore…" Aelita shrugged. "…I had never seen you before and you were wearing socks so I figured that you had shoes _somewhere_…"

Jeremy looked at her, and Aelita rubbed her neck. "Why is my dad not going?" She asked.

"I don't know. I think that he thinks that he's protecting you and your mom because the Xanadu knows where you live… or where you used to live…"

"Jeremy! C'mon! Odd's back now and we have to get going before it's too dark to see the migrating birds!" Lyna called up after a while, waiting for her brother to respond. She rushed up the stairs and into Aelita's bedroom. "Jeremy, did you hear me?"

"Yeah, I'm coming." Jeremy stood up slowly, and Aelita held onto his hand. "C'mon, don't be like that…" He begged, but he didn't pull his hand away. Aelita hugged him again.

"Hey!" Lyna protested, grabbing Aelita's attention. "Do I not get a good-bye hug?"

Aelita laughed and hugged the elf girl. Lyna held her at arm's length and said, "I'm going to think of you everyday. No, twice a day. No, three times a day. And you'll a huge envelope and inside there will be lots of letters. All the time." Lyna looked into the girl's eyes. "And you better write back, damn it!" She added, hugging the girl again.

"I'll miss you, Lyna." Aelita said. "And you'd better miss me, too…" She cocked her head to once side, and she sounded unsure of herself when she added, "…damn it."

Jeremy smacked his sister as he walked past her. "I told you that you'd pervert her mind!"

"Oh, come off it, Jeremy!" Lyna protested as she waved good-bye and followed her brother down the stairs. "All she said was 'damn it!'"

Aelita watched as the elves walked out her front door. She looked around her bedroom, all of the things small enough to take apart gone and the larger things stripped of fabrics and ready to be taken away. She knew she would never see it again.

She knew she'd never see her friends again.

Aelita watched as her mother came in, and she cried in her arms.

* * *

A few hours later, Gus pulled over onto an empty road and muttered a few words. It was getting to be monotonous. The van sprouted wings, and they took off for the skies. "Y'know," Odd said, petting his dog, Kiwi, as he looked out the window. "Vans really shouldn't fly."

"Did you expect anything less?" Jeremy asked, and Odd looked at him.

"No, not really." Odd shrugged. "I'm not complaining." He was silent for a few seconds. "Waldo Schaffer's my uncle, and he's also the king of creatures."

"Right." Jeremy agreed.

"My aunt is the queen of creatures." The cat boy continued, and the elf boy nodded. "My cousin is both the princess and sickly." There was another nod. "Well, fuck! Now I'm a cat boy! My family is crazy!"

"Your family may be crazy, Odd, but my family is just a little bit whack." Jeremy told him.

"What makes you say that?" Odd asked.

"I'm telling you, Ulrich, the undead fish skeleton goes to the right of the orange snot ball!" Lyna shouted suddenly.

Odd pondered that. "…so?"

Jeremy shrugged. "So that's my sister for you."

"Where is this stupid plane going, anyway?" Odd asked, clearly beaten.

"It's a stupid _flying van_," Jeremy corrected. "And it's probably going to West Virginia. It's far from New York, which is where you said the base near Hermitage was going to, but we don't have any confirmed safe houses closer than that."

"Oh." Odd said. "Hey, don't blame me for not knowing that! I'm a first-time flyer with this crew!"

"You are not! You flew with us three days ago when we went to pick up cheeseburgers!" Lyna protested.

* * *

A/N: I laughed when Puck got shot. I cried when Jeremy and Aelita were saying good-bye. _**Crap!**_ I'm such a wimp. Anyway, I'm also here to say that the conversation that Jeremy and Odd had was originally planned for Jeremy and Aelita, with Aelita doing Odd's part. However, Lyna was always screaming something about a fish skeleton and an orange snot ball…

I have no idea what she and Ulrich were trying to do with those things, but…


	21. Chapter 21

_Chapter Twenty-One: Epilogue_

Diary of Aelita

19/10/2009

We moved into our new house five days ago, but we finished unpacking today. Our next-door-neighbor helped us a lot, but I think his motive was that he thought Mommy was a divorced single mom… he's creepy. Actually, this was a learning experience for me because I learned Mommy could speak English. I did not know that.

She took a job somewhere near the forest part of the mountains. I'm pretty sure she said it was a teaching job, and she only got it because the teacher freaked out and had a nervous breakdown… It was sort of interesting to hear her reasons. How she picked a school near the forest because we had lived in one before, a teaching job because Daddy had been a teacher…

I'm still upset. I don't think I'll ever stop being upset. I don't like that Daddy isn't here, and I hate that Jeremy left…

'We won't see each other for a long, long time, if we see each other again at all.' Those were his exact words.

It's kind of funny. I only knew of him for a few days, and I was with him for even less than that, but now that he's gone, it's really hard for me to imagine life without him. I wonder if that's how Mommy feels about Daddy, but if she does, I wouldn't know.

Mommy doesn't lock my door anymore. She locks the front door, but the one to my bedroom stays open. I don't blame her—heck, I'm thrilled—but I think she appreciates that I haven't really changed my routine. {←This is pretty much nothing.} The house is much smaller—I can see the front door from my bedroom, and I know that isn't saying much, but my bedroom is on the first floor—and it's really packed full of boxes, but there's something in the air that makes it feel like I'm right at home.

The cabinets always seem empty unless I think of the food I want from them, for starters. Mommy never cooks. It's that kind of phenomena that makes the house a home.

I used to be able to hear the city from my bedroom sometimes when we lived in Hermitage. But out here, miles from the city, you can only hear nature. The stream near our house running, crickets chirping, wind howling… most sounds are familiar. Some are novel to me. But the fact I can hear no cars or loud voice or anything you would expect from the city surprises me. Even back in Hermitage you could hear the faint cry of the city. But here, there's nothing. An emptiness extending in all directions. The music of uninterrupted nature is soothing, and I can finally hear my own thoughts clearly, and I must tell you, I don't like all of my thoughts.

Some of my thoughts surprise me.

* * *

25/11/2009

I haven't thought about him in a long time, but _of course_ fate has to screw with my head. _Of course_.

It snowed this morning, right? And our heater was broken. Mommy couldn't just leave me in that freezing house, so she took me to work with her. And I was really excited all the way there, asking question after stupid question and when I finally got there, all I saw was strangers with strange looks on their faces. They wore the school's uniform, and the uniforms don't really differ except for the girls wear pleated skirts and guys wear slacks…

So I'm disappointed. No big deal. I can live with that. During her third class, Mommy asked her students to hand in their homework, and I see this familiar face.

I'm talking _scary_ familiar.

The boy I saw looked exactly like Jeremy. Except for, you know, the elf ears, which had been replaced by normal human ears.

Like I said. Fate. It's screwing with me.

Anyway, I found a butcher knife and stuck it in the heater*. I hope that it's enough to get Mommy to take me again tomorrow so I can talk to that guy.

I wonder if it's like this everywhere. It can't really just be in West Virginia, can it?

* * *

*Probably not the safest thing to do with your ordinary butcher knife… DO NOT TRY AT HOME. Or go for it. See what happens.

A/N: Updated. It'll be hard to tell because all I did was change the date for November. By the way, Aelita _is_ from Europe, after all, so for those of you who don't know already, the date is written the European way, or DD/MM/YYYY. Actually, I have no idea if they write the whole year or not… the year is there in full to reinforce the fact that this is the year 2009.


End file.
